Big Time Newspaper Endorsements
Because this seems to be the weekend when all the big newspapers decided that they had better endorse Barack Obama. I will update this going forward–please alert me to endorsements in the thread [my emphasis throughout].
Chicago Tribune (has never endorsed a Democrat):
Many Americans say they’re uneasy about Obama. He’s pretty new to them.
We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.
We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.
The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics.
[snip]
Obama is deeply grounded in the best aspirations of this country, and we need to return to those aspirations. He has had the character and the will to achieve great things despite the obstacles that he faced as an unprivileged black man in the U.S.
He has risen with his honor, grace and civility intact. He has the intelligence to understand the grave economic and national security risks that face us, to listen to good advice and make careful decisions.
When Obama said at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we weren’t a nation of red states and blue states, he spoke of union the way Abraham Lincoln did.
It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation’s most powerful office, he will prove it wasn’t so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama’s name to Lincoln’s in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.
Los Angeles Times (has never endorsed a Democrat and hasn’t endorsed since 1972):
It is inherent in the American character to aspire to greatness, so it can be disorienting when the nation stumbles or loses confidence in bedrock principles or institutions. That’s where the United States is as it prepares to select a new president: We have seen the government take a stake in venerable private financial houses; we have witnessed eight years of executive branch power grabs and erosion of civil liberties; we are still recovering from a murderous attack by terrorists on our own soil and still struggling with how best to prevent a recurrence.
We need a leader who demonstrates thoughtful calm and grace under pressure, one not prone to volatile gesture or capricious pronouncement. We need a leader well-grounded in the intellectual and legal foundations of American freedom. Yet we ask that the same person also possess the spark and passion to inspire the best within us: creativity, generosity and a fierce defense of justice and liberty.
The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president.
[snip]
We may one day look back on this presidential campaign in wonder. We may marvel that Obama’s critics called him an elitist, as if an Ivy League education were a source of embarrassment, and belittled his eloquence, as if a gift with words were suddenly a defect. In fact, Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be.
ANY PRESIDENTIAL vote is a gamble, and Mr. Obama’s résumé is undoubtedly thin. We had hoped, throughout this long campaign, to see more evidence that Mr. Obama might stand up to Democratic orthodoxy and end, as he said in his announcement speech, "our chronic avoidance of tough decisions."
But Mr. Obama’s temperament is unlike anything we’ve seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right man for a perilous moment.
Atlantic Journal-Constitution (h/t rfw)
Different challenges require different strengths. Obama has demonstrated a calm, thoughtful leadership style that fits this time and this challenge well. He has laid out a wiser, more measured approach toward foreign policy that elevates diplomacy and negotiation while reserving the use of force if necessary to protect this country and its allies in a dangerous world. He understands that international respect and admiration can’t be forced at gunpoint.
Economically, Obama is better equipped to deal with a rapidly changing global situation, and his policies focus directly on the problems confronting the American working and middle classes. His tax plan, for example, proposes to cut taxes on 95 percent of American households while raising taxes only on households with an income of more than $250,000. That plan may have to be adjusted in light of a harsh new fiscal reality, but it demonstrates where Obama’s instincts and values lead him.
The same is true of his health-care proposal. It requires a comprehensive approach, including financial assistance to help small businesses buy insurance for their employees. It would also require large employers that do not offer health insurance to help their workers with the cost of buying insurance on their own.
Those are new approaches, crafted by a new generation of leaders drawn to Obama by the chance to write their own chapter in the American story. Their time has come. His time has come. Obama is a leader of rare potential, and that’s precisely what the job of our 44th president demands.
Boston Globe (h/t Ishmael):
COME JANUARY, a new president will take charge of a nation diminished, an America that is far shakier economically, less secure militarily, and less respected internationally than it was eight years before. The nation needs a chief executive who has the temperament and the nerves to shepherd Americans through what promises to be a grueling period — and who has the vision to restore this country to its place of leadership in the world.
Such a leader is at hand. With great enthusiasm, the Globe endorses Senator Barack Obama for president. The charismatic Democrat from Illinois has the ability to channel Americans’ hopes and rally the public together, at a time when the winds are picking up and the clouds keep on darkening.
Unlike many of his rivals this year of either party, Obama isn’t refighting the political or cultural battles of the 1960s. Instead, he is asking Americans to take responsibility for the nation’s problems now; no one else will take care of them, and the consequences of years of disunity and profligacy should not be visited upon future generations.
In unsteady times, it may seem obvious to gravitate toward the veteran politician, but in this campaign, it’s been the newcomer who has had the steady hand.
[snip]
If Americans were only worried about foreign affairs, McCain’s stalwart service in the military and experience on the national stage would make him the more credible commander in chief. But our eyes have turned homeward and, in this hour, Obama has the eloquence and vision to bring us back together.
As novelist Christopher Buckley said in endorsing Obama, the Illinois senator "has a first-rate intellect and a first-rate temperament."
With the help and prayers of the American people, we believe those talents can also make Barack Obama a great president.
In other elections, voters have complained of having to make a choice between two bad candidates. That is not the case this time. The nation is fortunate to have good candidates and a clear choice. Sen. Obama represents the best chance for America to make a clean break with the culture wars and failed policies of the past, and begin to restore the hope and promise of America as the world’s greatest democracy.
Americans are ready to be one country. By the millions, they yearn to bridge their differences, to find common cause, to rise above ideology, race, class and religion.
They have grown weary of the culture wars and the personal attacks, tired of the exaggerated lines that divide. They dare to imagine a more constructive discourse, a debate marked by civility and respect even in disagreement, a politics that begins with listening to each other.
[snip]
Often in America’s most difficult days, the nation has been blessed with extraordinary leaders who seemed just right for the times. We have in mind George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The times again demand an extraordinary leader. Our next president will take the oath of office in a country that is at war, heavily in debt, deeply divided and sliding into a recession. He will have to make hard choices — the money won’t be there for all his ambitious plans — and he will have to work with a Congress so lopsidedly Democratic that it may be veto-proof.
[snip]
Success will require audacity, in all the best meanings of the word: nerve, spunk, grit and, especially, boldness.
And success will require a president and a people ready to embrace hope, in all the best meanings of that word: A conviction that what we want and need can be had.
Barack Obama believes in the audacity of hope. He inspires it in others. He inspires it in us.
Barack Obama should be the next president of the United States of America.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (h/t Ishmael):
American exceptionalism — the idea that this nation by virtue of its history, political beliefs and the blessings of divine providence has a favored place in the world community — is easy to believe in this year of a presidential election that is in every way exceptional.
Titanic forces have been at work. It is as if history has been a glacier inching its way to the sea, coming together at last for a dramatic climax that most Americans could not have imagined when the journey began.
[snip]
But this election is not just about the shortcomings of Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin and the failed legacy of a philosophy that they seek to perpetuate under the hastily erected banner of maverick.
It is about the strengths of Barack Obama, whose rise to prominence is not a fluke or national infatuation but the consequence of his remarkable skills — a keen intellect, noble intentions and the wit and grace to express them in ways that have inspired millions across the country. He has a rare gift exactly suited to the fearful times — he knows the language of reassurance and hope.
Salt Lake Tribune (h/t ballerinaX):
The country desperately needs a new and well-defined road map for the 21st century and leadership that can unite the country behind it. We believe that Barack Obama can give us both.
El Diario/La Prensa (h/t rfw):
Nuestro próximo presidente debe tener la capacidad, juicio y visión para restaurar confianza, tanto aquí como en el extranjero. EL DIARIO/LA PRENSA respalda al senador Barack Obama como el líder listo para redirigir a Estados Unidos de América hacia su promesa.
[AP’s translation] Our next president must have the capacity, judgment and vision to restore confidence, both here and abroad. El Diario/La Prensa endorses Sen. Barack Obama as the leader ready to redirect the United States of America towards its promise.
Estados Unidos se encuentra en una encrucijada, el país necesita una visión distinta y un enfoque nuevo para enfrentar problemas que por décadas se vienen arrastrando. Barack Obama es la persona indicada para iniciar un nuevo ciclo de reconstrucción, como presidente de Estados Unidos.
The United States is at a crossroads. The country needs a different vision and a new focus to the problems that have been dragging on for decades. Barack Obama is the right person to begin a new cycle of renewal as President of the United States.
Throughout a campaign that has been intense – and at some points ugly – Obama has kept his composure and maintained a vision of optimism that has drawn an unparalleled wave of young people into the political process. His policies and his persona have offered hope to a nation that is deeply polarized, swimming in debt, mired in war and ridden with anxiety. He taps into that treasured American reservoir – patriotism – with his calls for sacrifice and national service.
Not newspapers, but see Dean Smith, Michael Smerconish, Christopher Buckley.