Jerry McNerney has now won the endorsement of every influential newspaper in his district. The last one to make their endorsement was the Tracy Press. Tracy is the hometown of the Taker in Chief, Richard Pombo. Get the meat of the story on the jump.
There are a handful of newspapers in the heavily gerrymandered 11th CD that have the ability to influence opinion: Stockton Record, Modesto Bee, Contra Costa Times, Lodi News-Sentinel, Tracy Press and my hometown paper, the Morgan Hill Times. With the endorsement of the Tracy Press, McNerney has garnered every one.
Jerry McNerney has only been in office for two years representing the 11th congressional district. Because he listens to his constituents, we think he should go back to Washington.
In 2006, seven-term Republican lawmaker Richard Pombo of Tracy plunged to stunning defeat, and a little-known mathematician named Jerry McNerney went to Washington as our district’s congressman.
Some people, including Pombo, said the Pleasanton Democrat wouldn’t last longer than two years in Congress. We think this election will prove them wrong.
Why do we endorse the freshman congressman this time around, when two years ago we backed Pombo?
He’s a moderate, especially compared to his challenger, Dean Andal of Stockton, and he’s independent enough to stick his neck out to support bipartisan efforts, such as the $700 billion Wall Street bailout — something that would have been easy to vote against given his tight congressional race.
He posts his entire list of earmarks on his Web site and doesn’t apologize for trying to bring as much money back to our district as possible. After all, Californians send plenty more to Washington in federal taxes than the state receives in federal expenditures.
He listens to his constituents and has been highly visible in the district, returning home all but three weekends since he took office and hosting 45 Congress at Your Corner events.
The key points in this endorsement are (1) Because he listens to his constituents and (2) he is not an ideologue but rather "independent enough to stick his neck out..."
I rather expected this endorsements because the Tracy Press is a hometown, family owned paper and the owners / editors really care about their community.
The Tracy Press is one of only a handful of family-owned newspapers left in California. Four generations of Matthews family members have led the Tracy Press to the newspaper company that it is today. But they haven’t done it alone.
In this day of conglomerate media, we need more families like Bob and Cheri Matthews, willing to continue fighting for the preservation of their paper and the betterment of their town.
It is my opinion that with all of our focus on what Jake Tapper says, or Chris Matthews or any of the talking heads of the new media, the attention we pay to blogs, both good and bad, we must not forget to pay attention to local, community papers. They have the ability to reflect a bit before their start putting words on paper, something that the in your face, reactive media does not have. Yes, Chris can help expose the fraudulent nature of a Michele Bachmann, but you are often left with an analysis of trivia rather than substance.