The Wall Street Journal hasn’t endorsed a political candidate since the election of 1928 (perhaps out of shame: it endorsed Hoover). Under Rupert Murdoch, though—not one for bashfulness when it comes to expressing political inclinations—the longstanding, coy-postured policy just might change. In a piece about the WSJ’s potential takeover of Newsday yesterday (hat tip, Michael Calderone), Judith Burns noted:
Asked about endorsements for the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Mr. Murdoch said that “we haven’t made up our minds yet.” He noted The Wall Street Journal has a history of not endorsing presidential candidates but the New York Post endorsed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama during New York’s Democratic presidential primary.
“I don’t know what we’ll do in the general election,” Mr. Murdoch said.
Exciting stuff! Perhaps we’ll soon be reading the Journal’s take on the Candidate Endorsement Mad Libs Game:
Megan Garber is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. She was formerly a CJR staff writer.We, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, today endorse [Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama] to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. We believe that [Clinton/Obama] has the strength of [__(noun)__] to stand up to any challenge, be it economic, political, or [__(adj.)__]. [Clinton/Obama] has shown [his/her] policy acumen in [his/her] dealing with [__(noun)__], and has demonstrated [his/her] personal integrity in [his/her] approach to [__(noun)__]. Because of that, we believe that [Clinton/Obama] is the right choice to guide the Democratic Party as it strives to regain the [__(noun)__] of the country, to restore the United States’ domestic [__(noun)__], and to revive its [__(noun)__] on the world stage. Even though he’s a crappy bowler.
