Maybe now people can ignore newspaper presidential endorsements?

Silly me. I thought people had realized that 1) newspapers are a dying medium, and 2) people don't need media outlets to tell them what to think about a president. So when endorsement season struck in October, I laughed it off.

Is this the time of the year when we pretend that newspaper endorsements still mean something?
' @markos via web

But alas, the media universe remains littered with dinosaurs who refuse to acknowledge that the world has changed drastically.

So DMR endorsed Romney. Obama deserves what he gets in Iowa for this case of Political sloth.
' @howardfineman via Twitter for BlackBerry

Political sloth? No idea what Howard is babbling about. But whatever, I guess the president was properly chastened for ... climbing trees really slowly? ... by a bunch of irrelevant editors. So there! But then there was this bit of craziness:

It's not scientific or quantifiable by Nate Silver but Des Moines Register endorsement of Mitt first time it's' clear O may lose the race.
' @howardfineman via Twitter for BlackBerry

No it wasn't. It just wasn't. At the same time that Fineman was tweeting that, there was ample polling showing Obama comfortably ahead in Iowa. Even the conservative Gravis Marketing had President Barack Obama leading 50-46.

A couple of days after that tweet, NBC released a poll showing Obama up 50-44, while PPP had it 50-45. And then, the only poll that ever really matters in Iowa'by Ann Selzer and sponsored by the Des Moines Register no less'had Obama up by 47-42.

I mean, that was scientific and quantifiable by anyone with half a brain, but it was clear that O was going to win the race.

And he did, snagging Iowa by ... 5.81 points at last count (51.99-46.18). And what's more, Obama increased his margin in the legit polling (so excluding Rasmussen and ARG) after that newspaper endorsement.

So if a dominant small-state newspaper can't do shit to move the needle toward the guy they're endorsing, maybe their endorsement (and that of every other newspaper in the country) is utterly irrelevant?

Newspapers might still matter in city council elections, but federal ones? It's been a long time since anyone cared.