Posted on 10/13/2004 12:03:19 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
CRAWFORD - And you think the country is polarized?
The folks at Security Bank, the Yellow Rose and the Red Bull (souvenir shops, not bars), and the Fina filling station where farm elders commune over coffee at dawn in the "Room of Knowledge," are strongly for President Bush, the Republican favorite son whose ranch put tiny, alcohol-free Crawford on the world map.
Mayor Robert Campbell, a Democrat, is for Sen. John Kerry, but that has not stopped him from trying to snare the Bush papers for nearby Baylor University when the president leaves office — in January, Campbell hopes. A local weekly newspaper, The Lone Star Iconoclast, also has declared for the Democratic challenger, paying a steep price in canceled subscriptions and hate mail.
The Crawford Peace House across the tracks is officially nonpartisan, but it is hardly partial to the commander in chief of the war in Iraq.
For a quiet country crossroads (population 735) near Waco, the place billing itself as "the hometown of our 43rd president" is not immune from the scorched-earth politics roiling the nation.
"What we did was like slapping their mother," said Nathan Diebenow, one of four — uh, make that three — staff writers on The Iconoclast whose collaborative Sept. 29 editorial, "Kerry Will Restore American Dignity," set off a furor here, quickly crashing the paper's Web site (iconoclast-texas.com) with 6,496 hits, far more than the normal 250 a day.
A fourth staff member listed on the masthead, David Anderson, associate editor, has dissociated himself from the editorial, said Michael Harvey, spokesman for the editor in chief, W. Leon Smith.
The newspaper, which endorsed Bush in 2000, faulted him for "a hidden agenda" that it said included involving the country in "a deadly and highly questionable war."
Smith, the Iconoclast's snowy-bearded majority owner and fervid Ronald Reagan admirer, said in his cluttered office in nearby Clifton that all three of the newspaper's outlets in Crawford had stopped selling it and that a reader boycott had cut newsstand and subscription sales to 482 copies a week from 920.
See this Newspapers endorse 'wrong' guy
The Washington Times version was better
He had it comin.
Good. I hope they go out of business.
Have a link to the WT thread?
Also, the Houston Comical should know ALL ABOUT newspapers losing subsciptions because of their antiBush stance.
I'm waiting to hear how the paper's free speech is being trampled.
He he he. People are just voting with their feet.
I am sure they will say that at some point, click that link to the Wash Times version, its much better
I live about a hundred miles South of Crawford. There is no there there. It's not even a wide spot in the road. The only activity is when Bush is in .... (can't say town cause it isn't) ..... the area.
but I like rural areas
***....Most folks in Crawford, with a population of 705, wholeheartedly support the re-election of the man whose "Western White House" has made their speck on the map famous. Eighty-two percent voted for Mr. Bush in 2000.
The paper's publisher, W. Leon Smith, said he never expected such a hostile response. He knew "a person or two might pull an ad, that we might lose a subscriber or two."
"But this has turned a little more vicious," said Mr. Smith, 51.
More than a dozen area businesses have banded together to take out a two-page ad in a competing newspaper to endorse Mr. Bush, and all the stores in Crawford that had sold the Iconoclast have stopped doing so. ....***
Washington Times Bump!
I wonder how he was bought off by Kerry's campaign.
The man owns another paper and it sounds as if it reliably leftist. Its just probably his own bias coming through.
Isn't free speech and free market great! Capitalism, wonderful, wonderful. :)
There is apparently a competing paper. I wish all cities could say that
I'd bet my bottom dollar that the Iconoclast didn't get even one piece of hate mail and that the Houston Chron is calling any letter that disagrees with the Iconoclast's endorsement, "hate mail."
Notice that Smith calls people's behavior toward him "vicious" and the Houston Chron calls their communications with the paper "hate mail," but neither will give specific examples. I find that exceedingly odd. You would think that if people had done things that were "vicious" and "hateful," Smith and the Chron would be more than eager to tell their readers just what those things were. But no. No, they're keeping all that a deep, dark secret, aren't they?
Exactly.
Oh, but the Houston Chron calls him a fervid (FERVID!) Reagan "admirer." So that means he must have just been forced by facts to reverse gear and support kerry instead the man he reportedly voted for in 2000. Right? Hey, wait a minute -- how come the Chron didn't say Smith voted for Reagan? How come they don't say he supported Reagan? Wouldn't they have said that if he had voted for him and supported him? All they say is that he fervidly admires him (present tense). Oh, I get it! We're supposed to conclude from that that he actually voted for Reagan and not for Carter and Mondale (past tense). Now, that's really tricky. I like that!
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