Kerry Gets Nod in Rival's Back Yard

The Lone Star Iconoclast, the newspaper in George Bush's home town, shook the small settlement of Crawford, Texas, yesterday by turning against its most famous resident and endorsing John Kerry.

The decision has not made W Leon Smith, the Iconoclast's publisher and editor-in-chief, very popular among Crawford's 705-strong population, a mainly conservative crowd who hope a second Bush term will invigorate the sleepy local economy.

"We're getting a lot of emails about it. A lot of hate mail and some saying this was something that needed to be done," Smith told the Guardian yesterday.

He conceded that the hate mail outweighed the more encouraging messages, but said: "Sometimes you have to do things that aren't very popular but you know in your gut are the right thing to do."

Despite its name, the Iconoclast has not always gone against the grain. When it was founded in 2000, it supported Mr Bush, who had bought the Prairie Chapel ranch on the outskirts of town.

But the last four years have changed Smith's mind. "We think the country is not being led in the right way, on domestic and foreign issues, on stem cell research and Iraq," he said.

"The publishers of the Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda," said yesterday's editorial. "Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry."

The weekly newspaper has a circulation of 726, 21 more than Crawford's population. But the significance of its decision was not lost on the Kerry campaign.

"Those who know George Bush the best, say it the best," a campaign spokesman said.

The president spends many weekends and almost all holidays at his Crawford home, where he likes to fish, but hardly ever goes into town.

He is there now, and the Iconoclast was delivered as usual.

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, brushed off the snub on a day when the latest polls showed President Bush with a steady lead. "I feel pretty confident about the people of Crawford and the state of Texas in this election," he said.