It’s hard to make friends during endorsement season.

I usually don’t wince when opening my email. I usually don’t check caller ID on my cell phone so I can decide whether to answer it or let it go to voicemail. I don’t cringe at text messages.

But when my incoming text alert chimed at about 8:30am on Oct. 11 and I read it, well, I knew it was going to be a rough week.

“You morons,” the message stated.

I asked the texter, someone whose opinion I value and someone with whom I share snark on the regular, what his problem was at that particular moment. “Whoever is on your panel for endorsements… you people are morons.” (There was an expletive included in there, too. Suffice it to say, it rhymes with ducking.)

Gentle reader, since that early-morning text message, it’s been downhill from there.

There’s nothing like our endorsement issue to drive even the most mild-mannered reader, source or politician around the bend, and given the political climate on the national level, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that people were upset. But hell, this time around, even candidates who we endorsed were upset.

In Seaside, Kayla Jones, the councilmember running for mayor against Ian Oglesby, the former councilmember she defeated in the last election to win her current seat, believes our endorsement of her read like a backdoor endorsement of Oglesby. There’s a paragraph in her endorsement that says this particular election has become a decision about who has better judgment. We believe, despite the controversy that has swelled around Jones’ expense reports and campaign disclosure forms, she is still a better choice than Oglesby. Oglesby, we pointed out, was an uncompromising vote for Monterey Downs, the horsetrack-and-homes development that never came to fruition in Seaside, yet left the city saddled (get it? saddled?) with over $500,000 debt.

“I know the Weekly has a limited amount of space,” Jones writes in an email to our endorsement panel, of which I am not a member, “(but) to write what was said without any backstory or nuance seems wholly unfair and like an unwitting endorsement of Ian.” So much for thanks.

In Salinas, where we endorsed Councilmember Steve McShane over challenger Nona Childress, we did so with stated reservations. He was upset and thought we fell short on explaining good things he’s done. We endorsed him because we believe he’s still a better candidate with the potential to do better things for his district (where I happen to live).

Then there were the candidates we didn’t endorse: Jerry Edelen, mayor of Del Rey Oaks, whom we generally like and who we admire for his efforts to rid the city of a corrupt city manager and bring the county’s first cannabis business – and its related tax revenue – to the tiny city. We went with his opponent and Edelen made it clear, both in a letter he sent that appears on page 22 and in conversations with some of the staff, that he was done sending story ideas to theWeekly. In Monterey, mayoral candidate Bill McCrone sent us a letter with the subject line “TheWeekly’s lack of integrity” and demanded we retract our tepid endorsement of incumbent Clyde Roberson. Back in Salinas, District 5 council candidate Christie Cromeenes (who we didn’t endorse but who we think would be a fine councilperson, and said as much) sent a nice letter thanking us for our time, but pointed out her opponent, Andrew Sandoval, had multiple restraining orders filed against him during his time taking on the Oasis Charter Public School administration. (All of those restraining orders, by the way, were dismissed by a judge, who then ordered Oasis to pay Sandoval’s legal bills.)

Don’t even get me started on the endorsement of Dave Potter for Carmel mayor. Everyone by now should be well aware of what the Steve Dallas administration has wrought on the city. Potter is by no means a perfect candidate; he’s the guy who brought Monterey Downs to the Peninsula during his time as a county supervisor. But in that particular race, it’s a matter of, he’s better than the other guy.

There are no participation trophies in politics. We wish we could cheer you on and say, “You’re all winners,” but that’s not reality. Reality is, come November, some people will win. Whether or not we’ve endorsed them, we hope they do a good job.

MARY DUAN writes The Local Spin for the Weekly. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan