Who not to vote for

The lead editorial in Saturday's Intelligencer did not endorse any candidate for the West Virginia Supreme Court. Instead, it was a 230-word editorial on the candidate we should not vote for. With the title, "One Candidate Not to Support," it was not hard to guess who that might be. Of course, it's the villainous Darrell McGraw:

While deciding which candidate is best may be difficult, determining who is worst is easy. Because of his unsavory reputation and his politically motivated judicial activism, Darrell McGraw ought to be out of the question for the Supreme Court.

Of course nowhere to be found in the editorial is there an example of his "unsavory reputation" or "judicial activism."

Here's the plan!

Sunday's editorial takes Saturday's editorial one step further to advise us not to throw our vote away. The editorial quotes a recent poll (which I could not find) that has Darrell McGraw leading the five-person race for supreme court justice. McGraw did not have a majority of those polled yet the editorial worries that he will win because the rest of the votes will be divided among the other four candidates. The editorial then gives us our marching orders:

If and when other independent, nonpartisan polls come to our attention, we will inform you of them because they may indicate which candidate has the best chance of beating McGraw in the May 10 election.

A vote for anyone but the candidate other than McGraw with the most support will be a vote for him. Ballots cast for candidates with no realistic chance of beating McGraw will be wasted - and he is counting on that happening.

Thanks, News-Register. So, not unlike the Cruz-Kasich anti-Trump plan hatched recently, the News-Register doesn't want voters to vote for the best candidate but rather the one who best supports their anti-McGraw plan.

To hell with knowledge and impartiality - we have a candidate to defeat

Ten months ago, the Intelligencer commented editorially on the new West Virginia law that created the non-partisan election of judges:

West Virginians want judges who will be knowledgeable about the law and impartial in their rulings. Period. The new system is more likely to put such people on the bench, and legislators were right to make the change.

Maybe West Virginians want someone knowledgeable and impartial but I think it's clear that our "newspapers" only want someone not named "McGraw."