President Obama and his campaign have been diligently working to win the endorsements from newspapers in battleground states, which is why he placed a call to The Des Moines Register on Tuesday.
While Mr. Obama will not learn until this weekend whether he will receive a second-term endorsement from the editorial page of Iowa's largest newspaper, he was handed an outside-the-Beltway lesson when an off-the-record conversation requested by the White House spilled into public view.
The editor of the newspaper, Rick Green, shared an account of the presidential telephone call with his readers in a blog post on Tuesday evening. He said that Mr. Obama “made a genuine and passionate case†for why he should be elected to a second term.
“Unfortunately, what we discussed was off-the-record,†Mr. Green wrote. “It was a condition, we were told, set by the White House.â€
The White House invited Mr. Green and the newspaper's publisher, Laura Hollingswor th, to join a “personal call†with the president. Mr. Green said he was told that the “specifics of the conversation could not be shared.â€
They accepted the call, but shared their concern with readers about what they characterized as a lack of transparency. But they said it “won't play a factor†in the editorial board's endorsement decision.
“That would be petty and ridiculous,†Mr. Green wrote. “We take far too seriously what's at stake this election and what our endorsement should say.â€
The newspaper endorsed Mr. Obama in the 2008 general election, after backing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Iowa caucuses following a prolonged period of courtship.
Mitt Romney met with members of the newspaper's editorial page earlier this month during a visit to Iowa. The interview drew attention when Mr. Romney said that he had no plan to pursue specific legislation on abortion.
