Some people say it takes guts to be a good president. Others believe that it’s a great mind, or heart, or just that little sumpin’ sumpin’. Here at The Fed, however, we know better. As Feditor-In-Chief, and on behalf of the entire staff of The Federalist, we are proud to endorse the candidates who possess the only qualification that truly matters: really, really, super duper wanting to be President. Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, and Donald Trump—go out there and kick some ass. We believe in all of you, individually.
It is quite the relief to finally be honest with the world about where our support lies: that is, with everyone. You see, we were previously under the impression that it was the job of a newspaper wishing to make an endorsement to analyze the candidates’ differences in experience and proposed policies, carefully weigh the options, and then pick one person to recommend to the voting public. But after The New York Times, our little sister publication, endorsed both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, we realized just how wrong that theory was. The real purpose of an endorsement is to make sure that no one can be mad at us later—because no matter who wins, we called it. This ‘Have Your Cake, and Eat It Too’ option is now official Federalist policy: New York Times, we salute you.
We only wish that we had known sooner that this option was available to us. The Feditorial Board has spent practically every election cycle in American history gnashing our teeth and worrying about if we made the right endorsement. Sure, our 1972 endorsement of George McGovern may seem prescient now, with the 2020 hindsight of Nixon’s corruption and eventual resignation, but at the time, all we knew was that we lost. Sure, our 1860 endorsement of Abraham Lincoln turned out to be backing the right horse, but did we really give Southern Democratic candidate and eventual Confederate general John C. Breckenridge a strong enough look?
It’s not enough for an endorsement to be principled, or predictive, or impactful, or even right: it needs to be all of those things at once. We’re not in the business of crushing dreams here at The Fed—we prefer to grind them into a fine dust, cut them with baby powder, and snort them up our noses. If someone is crazy enough to run for President in the first place, then the very least that we can do is offer our support. The Federalist is proud to endorse not just every candidate running for President in 2020, but any candidate for the nomination of any political party in any election for any position, both retroactively in the past and going forward until the end of time.
Except for Tom Steyer.
