...for the first time in its history. Col McCormick might come up out of his grave.
The endorsement is entitled Tribune endorsement: Barack Obama for president and went up at about 3:30 EDT.
From the endorsement:
On Nov. 4 we're going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.
On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.So in it sense it should not b earthshattering that they endorsed Obama.
Still, the endorsement is not only precedent setting, given the editorial history of the paper; it is also powerful.
Consider:
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.
and also consider this:
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
And consider this about McCain, whom they endorsed in the primary:
t is, though, hard to figure John McCain these days. He argued that President Bush's tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, but he now supports them. He promises a balanced budget by the end of his first term, but his tax cut plan would add an estimated $4.2 trillion in debt over 10 years. He has responded to the economic crisis with an angry, populist message and a misguided, $300 billion proposal to buy up bad mortgages.McCain failed in his most important executive decision. Give him credit for choosing a female running mate--but he passed up any number of supremely qualified Republican women who could have served. Having called Obama not ready to lead, McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. His campaign has tried to stage-manage Palin's exposure to the public. But it's clear she is not prepared to step in at a moment's notice and serve as president. McCain put his campaign before his country.
Read that again:McCain put his campaign before his country.
I urge you to read the entire editorial, and to pass it on to everyone. Let me end as they do, knowing I am pushing fair use:
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.
WOW!
But in order to be fair and balanced, I must admit that McCain did gain the coveted endorsement of the Amarillo, TX Globe-News.
(Full endorsement tally here.)
Right there, that's about 2/3 of all McCain's endorsements in terms of circulation. What a complete joke.
But it's amazing that one paper alone accounts for about 50 percent of McCain's "circulation" reach (the New York Post over 700,000 readers out of about 1.5 million reach in total endorsements).