Barack Obama is winning the US newspaper endorsement battle over John McCain by a margin of more than three to one. According to the latest Editor & Publisher count, Obama has the backing of 105 papers compared to 33 for McCain.
Many of the titles supporting Obama are the dominant papers in major cities - such as Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and San Francisco - and he has picked up several papers that gave Bush their backing in the last election.
A HuffingtonPost analysis by Greg Mitchell says the switches to Obama include Republican party stalwarts like the Chicago Tribune (which has never previously endorsed a Democrat), the Houston Chronicle, the Denver Post and the New York Daily News.
Mitchell notes that "one paper after another cites Sarah Palin as clearly unqualified to be president." Does that mean that McCain's running mate is the defining issue in the election? Well, Colin Powell certainly seems to agree with the papers.
