The Zero's been just full of surprises during the past day or so, which is a significant improvement over what many have come to expect them to be full of. First, they (along with virtually every other paper in the state) endorsed Republican Knute Buehler over hyper-partisan Democrat Kate Brown for Secretary of State; a development that few can recall happening in the past few decades. Moreover, they didn't mince any words: Kate's a career politician who's been around Salem for two decades while accomplishing little more than being divisive. Ow.
Yesterday, they went even further; noting that public empolyee bosses are pouring cash into Knute-bashing ads that have no basis in fact, while thrashing Kate again:
Voters, too, should think of their pick not only as a secretary of state, but also as a future aspirant to the state's highest office. Would they prefer in either office someone backed by both public employee unions and the most partisan secretary of state in recent memory or someone who has sought through the initiative process to empower voters and reduce the effects of partisanship? The better choice is obvious.
Katie's got to be soiling herself. If she manages to get enough dead people to vote and thus retains her seat, you can bet she'll be going after some newspapers around here.
It seems reasonable to suspect that this veering away from a predictably Left course with a mild rightward course correction motivated their long-time editorial cartoonist to bunch it. Being decidedly Leftist himself, the atmosphere over there has likely been growing somewhat less congenial. It used to be that he could count on support from other solid Leftists, such as plagiarist Jonathan Nicholas - but he's gone, and the numbers appear to be dwindling.
Oddly, the disappearance of some of the hardest of the hard-core Left might be related to the disappearance of readership: as Terrance notes, circulation at The Zero has been declining by significant percentages over the past seven years; if they're going to turn it around and avoid ending up like a Pamplin paper (mostly online, with a weekly print version), then they seem to have decided that their best course is to stop doing what they've been doing.
They've jettisoned Jonny and Margie Boule, both rock-solid leftists, among others, and now their cartoonist has decided that the environment is less inviting. Will it work? The better question is: can it hurt?
