Davis: No kidding, we did find political letters that made our '16 faves list

Truth be told, 2016 wasn't the best year for our favorite letters to the editor salute, now making its fourth annual appearance.

The nastiness and viciousness of the presidential campaign came through - from writers on both sides of the political spectrum - in the tone of many of the letters we received. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to remember a year in which we spiked as many letters on the grounds that they were simply too nasty, too mean-spirited, too much of a personal attack, either on candidates or other letter writers.

That's why the letters that manage to avoid gratuitous snark, those that make an argument, perhaps on a controversial topic, in a persuasive but constructive way, really percolate to the surface as winners. In fact, when Jim Slusher, our assistant managing editor/opinion, and Colleen Thomas, an editorial page editor who has since left the paper, and I began discussing the concept, that was the thread, we discovered, for what makes a letter a personal favorite. These, we decided, were the types of letters we'd like to see more of.

And don't get us wrong: there's pretty of room for sarcasm and humor or both.

One of my favorite examples of this came in last year's batch of faves. An Elgin writer offered his not-always-glowing, page-by-page critique of the paper. He didn't hold back when he got to the Opinion page, calling our Saturday Soapbox "benign," characterizing letters to the editor (must have been a bad day for them) as "drivel," but saved his best shot for a letter writer "ranting about what a sin it was for Mike Ditka to wear a Packers sweater in a commercial. The only sin here is the way the Bears have played the last few years. I knew there was something in the Herald funnier than your lame comics page."

Ow.

Favorite letter-writing topic of 2016? Hands down, Donald Trump. Both yay and nay. No, we didn't do an official count - and many of the letters we deemed unpublishable were on Trump or his opponent - but I know there were plenty of occasions in which we could have filled the Opinion page with letters on the president-elect.

So, you might think: No Trump letters in this year's listings, right? Au contraire. In fact, our first three are directly related to Trump and the election. But, again, all had a constructive point to make, and the first two clearly had a dog in the election fight. The first, written in June, was amazingly prophetic. The second, as Slusher notes, was pointed and clever. The third used the black-and-white labels put on our candidates to forward the notion we should each other better.

Other letters, you'll see, delve into politics, in keeping with the overall election theme for the year.

Biggest surprise: Not many letters celebrating the Cubs World Series win. But the one we picked looked at the bigger picture: It saluted our heroes' fortitude and the lesson it holds for all of us.

Enjoy.

jdavis@dailyherald.com