December 17, 2007
Briefly, the most powerful newspaper in the world
What is the most powerful newspaper in the world? This weekend, it have been the Des Moines Register, which usually exists in relative obscurity but every four years has a big say in which candidates are nominated by the state of Iowa to be Democrat and Republican presidential candidates.
This year, as before, Iowa and New Hampshire have a disproportionate influence on who gets chosen as party candidates because they go first. The first vote this year is the Iowa caucus (the rules of which are too difficult to explain, or indeed for me to grasp), which will happen on February 3.
So the candidates and their lobbyists have been spending a lot of time currying favour with the editorial board of the Register. There was an amusing story in the New York Times last week about Bill Clinton trying to win over the three women who lead the editorial board.
This weekend, the results are in and the winners are: Hillary Clinton in the Democrat race and John McCain for the Republicans.
All in all, the idea that a newspaper editorial can swing which candidates get chosen is very strange, given how much money is being spent on the campaigns and the fact that television and the internet now exist. And opinions vary as to how influential the Register endorsement really is.
Still, a state that chooses its candidates by such an arcane method is probably more inclined to take a newspaper editorial seriously than other places.
