And that’s the difference

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Wow, if you’ve ever wanted to see the difference between us and them, all you have to do is look at the Reno Gazette-Journal’s endorsements for office this election: www.rgj.com/section/news1903. Then look at ours, www.newsreview.com/reno/liveballot.

From top to bottom in the G-J list, I can only see three threads of consistency. The first is an endorsement of the “establishment.” Those endorsements represent fear to me. Why would a newspaper that highlights the problems of this city on its front page every day endorse the very people—and their tools—who got us into this position as one of the worst economies in the nation?

The second theme I see is money. Often, the Reno Gazette-Journal appears to like the candidates who’ve raised the most money. Go here: http://tinyurl.com/8zac5jd. It’s easy enough to plug in the candidates’ name on the third tab (contribution search). Limit the date range to this year and … voila! Suddenly, you can see the next four years into the future. Again, there’s an exception or two to this, but just consider the other “themes,” and you’ll get the picture.

The third is a pretension of influence. Honest to gosh, it’s truly hard not to do predictions instead of endorsements. There are five people on the editorial staff here at the RN&R. Together we average about 32 years in Nevada (and since Ashley is 24, that takes some living). We could literally pick the winner in any race 98 percent of the time, but we endorse who we think should win, not who we think will win. There are no underdog candidates on the RG-J ticket. I wonder if people would think we were more influential if we endorsed along the lines of power. That would be sort of like the RG-J endorsing David Bobzien despite its disdain for the guy.