The student newspapers on the flagship campuses of Ohio and Texas, which hold their primary elections on Tuesday, have endorsed different Democrats for president.
In today’s edition of The Lantern, at Ohio State University, the editors endorse Barack Obama. (They also endorsed John McCain, the probable Republican nominee.)
The editors said they “by no means” doubt the leadership abilities of Hillary Rodham Clinton. But they “question her tactics” in the campaign, they wrote, criticizing what they called her “less-than-cataclysmic accusation of plagiarism” against Mr. Obama and “her chief strategist’s snide jabs at Obama’s teenage drug use.” They also said she has too many enemies and would not be an effective remedy for Americans’ political apathy.
The Ohio State newspaper, praising Mr. Obama for refusing to accept campaign funds from lobbyists, said he has “proven politicians can feasibly run on grassroots support alone and prosper from it.”
At the University of Texas at Austin, The Daily Texan last week endorsed Mrs. Clinton, calling her a “seasoned politician” who has the political tools and knowledge to fix what the has gone wrong in Washington.
Mr. Obama apparently didn’t make many friends among the editors during the debate last week on their campus, in which he said he had received endorsements from every major newspaper in Texas.
“We may not be considered a ‘major’ paper to many,” the student editors wrote, “but we represent a crucial constituency of close to 50,000 young and enthusiastic voters, and we’ve been scrutinizing every move of the candidates leading up to today’s endorsement.
“Sure, Obama took many under his spell when he graced our city with his presence early in his campaign,” the editors wrote, “but we think he prematurely considered his work in Austin done.”
Mrs. Clinton had collected a total of three endorsements from campus newspapers as of Monday, while Mr. Obama had received 42, according to a running tally at Uwire, which gathers, edits, and distributes student-generated material.
Among Republicans who remain in the presidential race, Mr. McCain had received endorsements from 40 student newspapers as of Monday, Ron Paul three, and Mike Huckabee one.
