As a Republican voter, if I'm a South Florida Sun Sentinel reader, I am profoundly disappointed in my newspaper.
Rosemary O'Hara, the editorial page editor, just told me and the nation on CNN that her newspaper -- a publication that unfailingly endorses in the biggest elections -- isn't going to make a selection in the GOP primary because not one man in the diverse four-candidate field is qualified to be president. Not one.
But here's the problem: I don't get to do what they did.
If I'm going to fulfill the obligation of good citizenship, I have to go to the polls March 15 and cast a vote. I have to choose.
Yet, after months of debates and exposure to Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump, the Sun Sentinel editors who study the issues every day of the week, who live and breathe this stuff like crack house junkies, can't apply their well-honed political minds to give us even a "Hold your nose and vote for ...."?
O'Hara and her team have abandoned me. I'm in the party that doesn't deserve their attention.
They're telling me, stay home, don't vote, wait for the general election when you can vote for qualified candidates like Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.
This is a mainstream newspaper playing partisan politics. Period. Even now the Democratic National Committee is getting great mileage circulating the Sun Sentinel's no-endorsement editorial.
It is a newspaper that applies different standards to Democratic candidates than to Republican candidates.
For example, O'Hara said of Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, "... he has done little but run for office. Then, when he gets in office, he doesn't go to work very much."
Excuse me, but wasn't that every analyst's biggest rap against Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist? Crist spent his career looking over the fence, missing meetings, jetting off on far-flung-and-frequent vacations, yet the Sun-Sentinel endorsed him in the 2014 primary against Nan Rich, and in general election against Rick Scott -- when they knew full well he still had one eye on Washington.
Three of the four GOP candidates, says O'Hara, "are unqualified to be president." Unqualified how? Trump, I'll give you that -- has never held office. But the Sun Sentinel needs to crack a history book. Examples: Woodrow Wilson was elected president in 1912 after only two years as governor of New Jersey; Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 with no other experience than 16th chief of staff of the Army. Two political-experience lightweights, one a Democrat, the other a Republican, both pretty darn good presidents.
Come to that, President Barack Obama had no more qualifications to be president in 2008 than Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz or John Kasich does now.
Poor John Kasich. Says O'Hara, "... If you measure a candidate by the caliber of his campaign, Kasich's lack of traction and organization make a vote for him count for little." Huh? The caliber of his campaign? He's one of four in an original field of 19 GOP candidates still standing. I'd say with the Donald Trump bomb exploding all around him, the caliber of John Kasich's campaign is commendable-to-extraordinary. But that's just me.
And one last thing. Marco Rubio has another canvas to look at. He served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2000 to 2008, was speaker during his last two-year term. Check out his attendance record. I think you'll find it's better than Charlie Crist's. And I mean by a lot.
If I'm a Sun Sentinel reader right now, I'm disgusted. It isn't what the editors at my newspaper said about the candidates, it's that they either didn't have the cajones to make a decision or they used me and my party to score points for the Democrats.
Bottom line, if you're a newspaper and boast you always endorse, then for Heaven's sake, endorse. All your readers deserve respect and consideration, not just the ones on the left.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
