As newspapers endorse for Congress, top dailies tap Coleman — sans issues

Newspaper election endorsements are out — some packing a wallop as bracing as a stiff winter wind in October, others playing it as safe as pre-Halloween trick-or-treating at a local strip mall. Here’s a roundup of candidate preferences for the U.S. Senate and House that Minnesota papers have so far put in print. The recession sees the major dailies’ editorialists cutting back on costly opinions — either picking favorites without naming the issues they like them for, as both the PiPress and Star Tribune have done in the U.S. Senate race, or beating a wholesale retreat from making a pick at all, as the St. Paul Pioneer Press has done in the presidential contest.