Every election, the editorial boards of The Durango Herald and The Journal make endorsements. We do it because we persist in believing that once we have interviewed candidates and studied and debated issues, while keeping our minds open and our principles firm, our choices can add to the general conversation.
We hope this is as true and constructive whether or not readers in print and online agree with us.
We had a raft of propositions, and amendments to the state constitution, to consider this year. That process was somewhat straightforward.
We considered them individually, and also collectively.
For example, we chose to support Proposition 110, for a significant tax increase and significant road funding, including for Southwest Colorado, knowing that we did not support Proposition 109, which would force the Legislature to shift existing revenue to roads. We also balked at Amendment 73, a complex tax proposal for education. We thought one tax increase was enough for one season.
What was less straightforward was selecting candidates in some races.
We have been careful to state that our choices were just that, and not recommendations. We never said these were the ways we urged anyone else to vote.
We don’t believe you want that. We don’t believe anyone does.
Yet some of our choices were still controversial, to judge from a few letter-writers. In each case, coincidentally or not, the writer expressed disappointment and even anger in the handful of races where we did not endorse a Democrat.
It would be nice to see that kind of passion translate into turnout this year. In any case, we have tried to be helpful rather than directly influential.
If you are truly aggrieved by our choice, that’s all the more reason to vote differently yourself – although of course you can still write to complain about our choices. Your letters are another good source of information for the electorate, and we count ourselves fortunate to have so many of them to publish in print and online.
There are probably fewer newspapers making endorsements today than at any other time in the last 100 years.
Partly that’s because there are just fewer newspapers. But we are also going through another stage of corporate consolidation of many that remain, and today’s distant owners sometimes do away with endorsements because they’re controversial. Why risk alienating anyone, they reason.
We think that’s unfortunate.
We have more faith in you than that. Even when you write to say an endorsement of ours is shameful and deplorable, even when you call it tragic, we believe we can sustain an honest difference of opinion with you. Even this year.
We do not think the best path for you is to have us limit ourselves to discussions of things we can almost all agree on, such as the Broncos or care for the elderly, although those are fine things.
It is not our job to court controversy for its own sake, but at the same time, we believe we must be willing to risk it in defense of our principles. And we do not derive our principles from one of two political parties. As you have seen, we also do not think we owe blind loyalty to either of those parties – not even this year.
