McClatchy Endorses Barbara Lee For Senate

McClatchy, which operates the Sacramento Bee, Fresno Bee, Modesto Bee, Merced Sun-Star, and San Luis Obispo Tribune, announced on Wednesday that they will be endorsing Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) in the upcoming U.S. Senate election, despite Lee currently trailing at a distant fourth place in polls.

In their opinion article, the McClatchy editorial board said that the decision between the top three Democrats was close, and outright dismissed Steve Garvey (R) in a quick paragraph early on, with the main reason cited that he didn’t meet with them.

“Garvey, 75, has at least three strikes against him: He has no political experience, he has yet to articulate solid positions on major issues and, as far as electability goes, he is a Republican running in a deep blue state,” said the editorial Board. “Garvey also declined to meet with us and we don’t endorse candidates who won’t meet with us. Garvey could, however, pull enough votes to advance to the general election. That makes the March 5 primary even more crucial for the three top Democrats.”

When going into the three main Democrats, the board then gave quick outlines devoid of any criticism.

When they went over Congressman Adam Schiff, the opinion piece stated that “Schiff became a standard-bearer for the Democratic Party during the first impeachment case against former President Donald Trump, who was accused of withholding aid to Ukraine unless the country’s newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, opened an investigation of Joe Biden. Schiff led the impeachment investigation in the House and served as lead prosecutor during the Senate trial — and was later censured by House Republicans for his role.”

Congresswoman Katie Porter received even more praise, with the piece noting that “Porter has a well-deserved reputation for looking out for consumers. Armed with her whiteboard of justice, she’s grilled Big Pharma over inflated drug prices; bank executives over the miserably low salaries paid to tellers; and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over privacy. She even played a game of  Jeopardy — renamed JeoparDOD — with Department of Defense officials to highlight waste during a congressional hearing.”

Finally, the board chose Lee as their candidate to endorse. However, the board then went into paragraphs praising her life, notably leaving out her time with the Black Panther Party and attempting to justify some of the most infamous moments in her career, such as her being the only member of Congress to vote against the authorization of force following September 11th in 2001, with the board forgetting that the attacks even went beyond the World Trade Center attacks in New York.

“Lee is probably best known for casting the lone vote against authorizing the use of force following the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers — a decision that, in retrospect, many believe to have been the right choice. (According to a 2022 Gallup poll, 50% of Americans believe it was a mistake to send troops to Afghanistan.),” added the board. “It’s worth revisiting what Lee said when she cast that controversial vote: “Our country is in a state of mourning. Some of us must say let’s step back for a moment. Let’s just pause just for a minute and think through the implications of our actions today.'”

Lee gets latest endorsement

Their statement ended by saying, “Barbara Lee is focused on issues affecting working people, poor people, homeless people, disenfranchised people. If that’s what it means to be a progressive, so be it. Lee is the person we need in the U.S. Senate to counter far-right efforts to strip Americans of their rights. McClatchy California opinion boards strongly endorse Rep. Barbara Lee for the U.S. Senate.”

While there have been a spate of newspaper endorsements recently, with the most notable being the LA Times who picked Schiff, none went more into the praise and justification of flaws as McClatchy. And, more than likely, the endorsement will have little to no bearing on the race, due to Lee being so far behind and, if anything, Garvey benefitting from it the most due to possible some votes being taken away from Porter and Schiff.

“No paper is picking Porter, and she hasn’t had a new endorsement for awhile,” said Stephanie Lewis, a pollster in Southern California, to the Globe on Wednesday. “And remember, Porter is the one really challenging Garvey right now for second. So an endorsement like this, just like the LA Times, it is just going to help Garvey.”

“Their endorsement shouldn’t be all that surprising, but remember. Lee has more endorsements than Schiff now, and she got the most votes during the CADEM vote for an official candidate. But she is too unknown. All of that hasn’t gotten her much. Polling has her in a deep fourth and, like your outlet pointed out, we should really be questioning if she should be in the debate at all at this point. She’s big amongst strong liberals and black voters. That’s it. A comeback is only getting harder each and each day.”

More newspaper endorsements are likely to be released soon in the runup to next weeks debate.