POLITICAL BRIEFING

PAPER CHASE: Barring a dramatic reversal during the campaign’s last week, Bill Clinton will emerge as the winner in the battle for newspaper endorsements, an Editor & Publisher survey said. On Sunday, 18 papers endorsed President Bush, 50 came out in support of Clinton and three backed independent candidate Ross Perot. . . . Among the papers that recently embraced Clinton were the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Kansas City Star, the Denver Post, the New York Daily News and the Boston Globe. . . . Those endorsing Bush include the Houston Post, the Houston Chronicle, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Cincinnati Enquirer. . . . Perot has won the backing of the Republican Eagle in Red Wing, Minn., and the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune. The Minnesota paper said the endorsement was “by way of default because this year’s choices are simply awful.”