Someone said to me today “did you hear the New York Times is endorsing Barack Obama for president in this Sunday’s edition?  This is big.”

Is it?  Not really.   We could have reported this the moment Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race in June.    You see, for the past 52 years, the New York Times has always  endorsed  a Democrat for president.  The last Republican was Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.   That is 12 elections in a row the Times has recommended to readers they vote for a Democrat.   Endorsing Obama will make it 13.

There are some years when Democrats deserved the endorsement and other years when Republicans should have been picked.  There are certainly years when the Times editorial board was way out of step with the majority of Americans.

Take 1972 for example.    RIchard Nixon won 49 states in an historic landslide.   Democrat George McGovern, the New York Times’ choice for president, carried one state”  Massachusetts.   As a native Bay Stater, there’s an old joke that Massachusetts, too,  is often out of step with America.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan walloped Walter Mondale, also taking 49 states to Mondale’s one (his native Minnesota.)   The New York Times endorsement didn’t help a bit.  Even liberal Massachusetts went for the conservative Reagan.

Bottom line is, the endorsement of New York Times doesn’t mean what it used to.   Make your own decision on who to vote for.