Endorsements matter in lower-profile races because voters might genuinely be looking for guidance.
Follow-up: A longtime politico alleges the Globe had a conflict in its Seth Moulton endorsement.
For instance, The Boston Globe’s endorsement of Lori Trahan and Jake Auchincloss might have been key factors in their first congressional victories, given that there was no incumbent and there were multiple candidates running. On the other hand, The New York Times’ double endorsement of Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries stands out as an exercise in futility.
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In two weeks we’ll know which category the Globe’s endorsement of U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (sub. req., but this is free) in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate fits into. The incumbent, Ed Markey, remains popular despite his advanced age: he leads Moulton by a 28-point margin, according to the latest WCVB-TV/UMass Amherst poll, and the Globe/Suffolk University poll (sub. req.) has Markey up by 14. Moreover, endorsements matter less in high-profile contests — president, governor, senator — than they do when voters are less familiar with the candidates.
(Note: I wrote a more detailed commentary about how newspaper endorsements work for CommonWealth Beacon in 2024.)
Why would the Globe choose Moulton, a congressman of more moderate views than Markey with a penchant for shooting from the lip? (The Globe’s news reporters found no substance, sub. req., to Moulton’s reckless charge that Markey has some sort of tie to Jeffrey Epstein.) My answer is that it fits into a pattern of endorsements by the Globe not just during John and Linda Henry’s ownership but, before that, the New York Times Co. era and the Taylor family’s long reign. That is, the editorial pages have long had a penchant for occasionally deviating from their liberal orientation.
Not only were the aforementioned Trahan and Auchincloss more centrist than some of their opponents, but the Globe also endorsed Republican Charlie Baker over Democrat Martha Coakley in the 2014 governor’s race, and, going way back to 1974, the Republican incumbent governor, Frank Sargent, over Democratic challenger Michael Dukakis. That latter example comes with an asterisk: despite being a Republican, Sargent was perhaps the state’s most liberal governor before Deval Patrick was elected in 2006. Today’s Republican Party is not your grandfather’s, needless to say.
A couple of other points: news reporters hate endorsements because their job of providing fair coverage becomes more difficult if their news organization has taken sides. Yes, a quality news outlet maintains a strict wall of separation between the editorial pages and the newsroom. But candidates who are on the losing end of an endorsement often find that hard to believe.
The other point is that owners are perfectly free to involve themselves in the editorial pages, including having a say in — or even dictating — an endorsement. Though the Henrys enjoy a good reputation for non-involvement in news coverage, they can and do participate in decision-making by the editorial pages. Ideally, the owners should be part of a process, not issuing presumptive rulings from on high. The most notorious recent examples of the latter are Jeff Bezos’ and Patrick Soon-Shiong’s last-minute decisions to kill endorsements of Kamala Harris in The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, respectively. That said, we don’t know what precise role the Henrys might have played in the Moulton endorsement.
I’m a little surprised by the Moulton endorsement not just because of Markey’s huge lead and because of Moulton’s disparaging remarks in 2024 about trans athletes — remarks for which Moulton expressed no regret until he found himself in the heat of the Senate race. I was also surprised that the endorsement did not even mention Moulton’s ridiculous Epstein outburst.
That being said, Moulton’s voting record is reliably liberal despite his moderate reputation; a ProPublica database that has since been shut down showed that Moulton voted with the Democratic majority in the House more than 94% of the time. Given the hapless state of the Massachusetts Republican Party, whichever Democrat prevails on Sept. 1 is virtually guaranteed to win in November.
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“[Voting] with the Democratic majority in the House more than 94% of the time” is supposed to be reassuring? What about all this talk of “new Democratic leadership” if he just serves up the same slop, e.g., the $1+ trillion “defense” budget (“First, I want to see that our troops get paid,” said at a campaign event I attended) while infrastructure in this country gets a grade of “D”, and “Of course we have to support Israel” heard at another campaign event. This is something new under the Democratic sun?
Note: Markey voted “No” on the Pentagon boondoggle, and voted in support of the Bernie Sanders resolutions condemning arms shipments to Israel. Seems to me this 80-year-old has more moral marbles than Moulton (how’s that for alliteration?).
About a year ago in an event in Lynn I handed the following letter to Sen. Markey. As I have repeatedly noted in the Globe comment section, one might be fine at 80 and not so much at 82 or 84…Diane Feinstein is an example and was a profound embarrassment. Here’s the letter…
“Dear Senator Markey,
I have voted for you at every opportunity I’ve had since moving to Massachusetts more than 50 years ago. During that time my admiration for your work has only increased and, at this moment, it is at its peak.
However, should you decide not to run for re-election it would go up even further.
It would be truly heroic.
Given your power, prestige and influence, why would you even consider not running?
I write as a man who wants his children and grandchildren to live in a representative democracy capable of addressing the deep threats facing our country and the planet, today and into the future.
By stepping aside, you could bring to the fore a leader of the next generation. With continuing access to the Senate floor yourself, you might, in fact, extend your own power, prestige and influence well into the future. We need younger leadership as well as the more experienced kind. And, I’m sure your choice of a candidate to succeed you would take into account the long-term interests of the country we both love.
There are few around you—if any—who would express this point of view. They would not want to hurt you…nor would they want to hurt their own personal interests. I met your former Chief of Staff, John Walsh, twenty years ago and wrote an op ed celebrating his life for the Lynn Item. Should you want to read it I could send it to you. Were he still alive I would have asked him to convey this message to you.”
The picture of him at the baseball game reminded me of seeing him at a wake for a 27 year old who had suffered a tragic accident. He was joking with a bunch of older fellows at a wake following the death of a young woman whose father and mother we both knew. I’ve been to hundreds of wakes for old Irish guys. Laughs and chuckles about them in the old days were and are par for the course. But not in the presence of a solemn tragedy.
In looking at the Globe’s history of endorsements: I believe the Globe in 1990 endorsed Bill Weld for governor over John Silber, much to the chagrin of editorial page editor Martin F. Nolan, who, legend has it, refused to write the endorsement and left the building. Fact can probably be checked with Ellen Clegg.
The Globe definitely endorsed Weld over Silber. I left it out because Weld was obviously more liberal than Silber — Sargent over Dukakis was a little more ambiguous.
Silber was “definitely” more liberal than Weld. That’s a demonstrable policy- based fact. Just look up the Weld vs Silber campaign platforms.
He however wasn’t inclined to elitist niceties which offended the upper crust Globe trustfunders and their social circle.
Silber, like Trump, had no use for female journalists, insulting one of the more prominent among them. He also made racist attacks on Cambodians who had fled the Pol Pot regime, claiming that they didn’t “fit in” with his America. I asked an unquestionably liberal BU faculty member why he was supporting Silber for Governor. “Anything to get him our of BU,” was his reply.
I don’t recall whether Marty Nolan left the building – or who ultimately wrote the Weld endorsement – but I recall hearing that the publisher, Bill Taylor, intervened and wanted the Globe to endorse Weld. Silber was a homophobe and demeaned and mocked women journalists who covered him (I watched this unfold when I was education editor). Weld’s libertarian views skewed more liberal than Silber’s.
My comment on the topic of the Boston Globe endorsing Markey, which was blocked by the Boston Globe a few hours after I posted it. I’m leaving in the typos:
This is no surprise. The Boston Globe endorsed Jake Auchincloss in July 2020 during his first Democratic primary race for Massachusetts’s 4th Congressional District in a nine way race. The former Republican from Newton was the most conservative candidate in the race. There were nine candidates. What are the odds? Is it a coincidence that the rich guy who was the most conservative in the race was the candidate they endorsed?
“Ten days after winning the endorsement of The Boston Globe editorial board, Auchincloss submitted to an unprecedented public vetting in which he explained and apologized for controversial past comments and social media posts.” —Boston Globe
“The crowded field of candidates was ignited by the notion that the endorsement could be reconsidered. However, Venkataraman made clear that readers should not expect a change of heart. (“We do not revoke endorsements,” Venkataraman wrote on Twitter.)” [We also don’t vet candidates we like before we endorse, she didn’t write on twitter.]
“Some Auchincloss critics viewed the Globe event as another forum giving him an advantage in which he would get to air his views.”
“In a 2010 Facebook post with a news story about Pakistani lawyers burning the American flag, Auchincloss had pondered: “So we can’t burn their book, but they can burn our flag?”
“The Newton city councilor, who had criticized the city of Cambridge for “taking PC too far” in 2016 for renaming Columbus Day “Indigenous Peoples Day,” said he has evolved and now believes that America should rethink its symbols.”
“[Bina] Venkataraman also pressed Auchincloss on why he stood up for the freedom of speech of students who had flown the Confederate flag outside a Newton high school rather than for the students who would have felt threatened by such an act.” Boston Globe editorial loves the evolved. In 1980, they endorsed John Anderson, a former right winger who ran as a liberal Republican alternative to Trump, but said he “underwent a maturation process.” Reagan carried Massachusetts.
Look who is on the board. James Dao was reassigned at the New York Times after outrage ensued with the public and staff over the newspaper’s publication of an opinion essay by United States senator Tom Cotton, calling for the federal government to send the military to suppress protests against police violence in American cities.
“James Dao, the deputy editorial page editor, acknowledged that there had been a breakdown in the process of preparing the essay for publication.” — NY Times
A breakdown in the process. That is SO Boston Globe. No wonder they hired him. “Look for those process arguments and exuses in Globe editorials, when they want to come out against something,” without addressing the actual issues.
Then they have Rachelle Cohen former longtime Boston Herald editorial editor. The Herald lost money every year scapegoating the poor and minorities and then stiffed their creditors, after selling the building. Patrick J. Purcell, biggest welfare queen in the history of the Commonwealth. The creditors didn’t mind. And they won’t mind when Howie Carr’s home, I Heart Radio goes belly up, as long as your scapegoating minorities your paying the montly minimum, ref: MAGA supporters 2026.
You also have David Scharfenberg. He is a second generation Boston Globe editor, whose father Kirk Scharfenberg famously inserted the headline in the Boston Globe, “maybe the most notable gaffe in recent newspaper history” — the “Mush from the Wimp” headline over an editorial in March 1980 about a speech on the ecoomy by President Jimmy Carter.
Ooops tee-hee. “I meant it as an in-house joke and thought it would be removed before publication,” Mr. Scharfenberg wrote years later. “It appeared in 161,000 copies of the Globe the next day,” he said. It was changed during the press run to “All Must Share the Burden.” —NY Times
Maybe Kirk Scharfenberg preferred Gerald Ford’s “Whip Inflation Now” speech, where Ford made little circles with his index finger as he said the word “around, when he said” “We have to turn inflation around.” Or maybe he would have preferred the alternative to MUSH, that we now have with Donald Trump.
Fenway Sports Group just received billions for their share of the Liverpool Football Club from the guy who hollowed out (for easier bending rightward) the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos. The guy who just paid forty million for the Melania documentary and is backing the sequals.
Water doesn’t raise all boats, but water does seek its own level.
“Surprise” Globe endorsement not so surprising for nepo-baby Moulton given Henrys’ [Globe’s billionaire owners] undisclosed conflict.
I, too, was surprised that the Globe endorsed moderate Seth Moulton over progressive Ed Markey yesterday. The Globe endorsed Markey over Joe Kennedy six years ago, and their stated reason for endorsing Moulton – that “his positions on major issues … have been consistent with the values of most Massachusetts voters” is belied by their own front page article (same day) noting the Suffolk U / Globe poll had Markey 19 points ahead, and Monday’s UMass Amherst poll had 59% of respondents state that there were important differences between Moulton and Markey.
So what’s the reason the Globe uncharacteristically endorsed Moulton? It’s likely the not-disclosed connection between the Globe owners and Moulton’s wife–Liz Moulton joined global sports marketing consultancy Elevate in September 2023 as Chief People Officer and the company’s only Boston-area employee. Within a month, (Oct. 2023), Elevate was in discussions with Fenway Sports Management (a fully-owned subsidiary of Fenway Sports Group) to purchase FSM’s consulting business, including “Fenway’s book of business and nine Fenway people [who would] join Elevate, working out of a new Elevate office in Boston” alongside Moulton. The deal was announced in April 2024. Fenway Sports Management / Fenway Sports group is owned by the Henry family which also owns the Globe.
I don’t think it’s wrong for billionaires to buy newspapers and dictate what editorials those papers run (I don’t necessarily like it, but if I had a billion I’d likely do it) BUT, I think it’s underhanded and insidious to pretend an endorsement is based on shared values without disclosing the relationship the paper’s owners and the candidate.