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PENNSYLVANIA: ENDORSEMENTS & LOOK WHAT SPECTER PROMISED [Chris Lilik 10/29 01:02 PM]

Pittsburgh's two major newspapers, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (considered the town's liberal read) and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (the city's more conservative paper) took an unusual turn this week with their US Senate race endorsements.

First the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which usually backs Democrats,
endorsed US Senator Arlen Specter because he assured the paper that as Senate Judiciary Committee he would block President George W. Bush's conservative judicial nominees!

The best argument for his staying on is his seniority, which puts him in line to be the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that capacity, he would be in a position to block some of the ideologically extreme federal judges likely to be nominated by President Bush in a second term, some of them for the Supreme Court. Before the Post-Gazette editorial board, he promised that no extremists would be approved for the bench.

Next, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which usually backs Republicans, went and endorsed third party Constitution party candidate Jim Clymer!

The more conservative Republican votes Clymer racks ups, the better. If he wins, Pennsylvania gets a senator for whom principles — most of the right ones — matter. And if his vote total puts unrepentant boilerplate liberal Democrat Joe Hoeffel into the Senate, the GOP gets the lesson it deserves for supporting part-time Republicans like Arlen Specter.

Speaking of endorsements, Editor & Publisher has a pretty comprehensive Bush/Kerry newspaper endorsement breakdown.
The Associated Press supplied a few Pa. papers they didn't catch:

Kerry:
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Philadelphia Daily News
The Allentown Morning Call
Centre Daily Times

Bush:
The Easton Express-Times
York Daily Record
Altoona Mirror
Erie Times-News

Declined To Endorse:
Harrisburg Patriot-News
Scranton Times