Endorsement

So the more conservative Seattle Times has endorsed Barack Obama. Actually, they state that the re-endorse him, though the previous endorsement was back in the primary, and then for the Democrats.

The Times is Seattle's more conservative paper, which usually means that they give careful consideration, make thoughtful noises, and then tend to go Republican in their endorsements. They will embrace Democratic values only when the wheels seem to be coming off the bus for the GOP, which has been the case for the past couple weeks on the Straight Talk Express. Indeed, the punditry in general seems to be recasting themselves as "Well, once we believed in McCain. He used to be cool. But he's changed, man."

And that is one of the problems I see for the Progressive wing of American politics. You only get a shot, or even attention, when the other side has completely screwed everything up. We've been muddling through with bad advice and worse choices for nearly eight years now, and only now are people willing to vaguely admit that conservative doctrine may not be the best way to run a country. The right side of the aisle now only has to crash, but crash harder than it has ever crashed before to merit reconsideration.

In fact, the unusual thing about the past week of horrible economic news is that it happened right now. The efforts of the Administration has been pretty much to try to put off the catastrophe until after the election, to leave it as a fire burning in the Oval Office for the next tenant to discover. And still it could have been worse - it could have been your Social Security there in the bonfire as well.

In any event, the Times praises Obama with a few faint damns, but has to admit that on the issues, he has been correct, correct when others were wrong, and correct in the face of opposition. It will be interesting to see where the other endorsements go, and if we're going to see the Times try to lead a true sea change in conservative thought.

More later,