Denver Post endorses Obama

The Denver Post, which endorsed Bush in 2004, has endorsed Obama for president.  The endorsement is key in Colorado, a swing state.  From the endorsement:

America’s other most pressing long-term economic problem is health care.

Obama’s plan, while not perfect, is far superior to McCain’s catastrophic ideas. How does it affect the economy?

Consider this: General Motors now pays more than $1,500 for health care benefits, mostly for retired employees, on each new car sold.

America’s competitors in Japan, Germany and China don’t share such costs because their national health care plans are funded through broad-based taxes. Somehow, America must level the playing field.

McCain wants to eliminate the corporate tax deduction on existing health care plans, a cruel corporate surtax averaging $3,500 per employee. That tax hike would force employers to drop coverage for tens of millions of workers. The lucky workers who still had employer-paid benefits would have to pay income taxes on them — a $3,000 tax increase on a typical middle-income Colorado worker. And this massive tax increase on employers and employees alike comes from a man who asked repeatedly in the last debate: “Why raise anybody’s taxes?”

Why, indeed, Sen. McCain?

<snip>

Republicans love to mock Obama’s history as a community organizer. But here was a man with no money to offer, no patronage to dispense, no way to punish his opponents. All he could do was to work with people from all walks of life, liberals and conservatives, business people and the unemployed, and bring them together in common cause for a better community. Could there really be better preparation to reunite a worried and divided America to again pursue our “more perfect union”?

The Post takes issue with Obama on several issues.  Please read the full endorsement.

Chicago Tribune endorses Obama

Yes, it’s his hometown paper.  Perhaps the endorsement is significant, however, because it’s the first time in their history that the paper has endorsed a Democratic candidate for president.  From the endorsement:

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.

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.
<snip>

It 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.
<snip>

We know first-hand that Obama seeks out and listens carefully and respectfully to people who disagree with him. He builds consensus. He was most effective in the Illinois legislature when he worked with Republicans on welfare, ethics and criminal justice reform.

He worked to expand the number of charter schools in Illinois–not popular with some Democratic constituencies.

He took up ethics reform in the U.S. Senate–not popular with Washington politicians.

His economic policy team is peppered with advisers who support free trade. He has been called a “University of Chicago Democrat”–a reference to the famed free-market Chicago school of economics, which puts faith in markets.

Please read the remainder of the endorsement.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Endorses Obama

So many of these endorsements end up sounding the same:  we like Obama because he is X and we do not like McCain because he is Y.  This one speaks a bit of a different language in places.  From the endorsement:

A presidency is defined less by what happens in the Oval Office than by what is done by the more than 3,000 men and women the president appoints to government office. Only 600 of them are subject to Senate approval. The rest serve at the pleasure of the president.

We have little doubt that Mr. Obama’s appointees would bring a level of competence, compassion and intellectual achievement to the executive branch that hasn’t been seen since the New Frontier. He has energized a new generation of Americans who would put the concept of service back in “public service.”

Consider that while Mr. McCain selected as his running mate Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, a callow and shrill partisan, Mr. Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. Mr. Biden’s 35-year Senate career has given him encyclopedic expertise on legislative and judicial issues, as well as foreign affairs.

The idea that 3,000 bright, dedicated and accomplished Americans would be joining the Obama administration to serve the public — as opposed to padding their resumés or shilling for the corporate interests they’re sworn to oversee — is reassuring. That they would be serving a president who actually would listen to them is staggering.

There is more and I hope and trust you will go read it.