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Oct

11

Dayton Daily News endorses Obama


In a very thorough review of the strengths and weaknesses of John McCain and Barack Obama, the Dayton Daily News concludes that Obama is a “brilliant young man offering a new generation of leadership” and the better choice for president. Here’s why:

The nation’s moment of choice arrives even as some sort of new era has arrived in the realm of the economy. The problems the nation is obsessed with at this moment are not problems that John McCain has any particular experience with. Neither does Barack Obama.

But in a time of change, Sen. Obama is the more promising leader. With his agile mind, often pitch-perfect judgment and preternatural calm and self-confidence, he seems built for the job of sorting through this thing, if anybody can.

The nation faces a choice that looks more and more like a choice between the future and the past. It has never been one to shrink from the future.

Some of the specifics:

Against McCain:

…[John McCain] changed after 2004. He joined the Republican team on taxes. He gradually moved to the right on immigration. He told the conservative wing of the party what it wanted to hear on Supreme Court appointments, even though the appointment of hard-line conservatives is likely to doom the campaign-finance reform law that epitomized his work in his maverick days.

(The McCain-Feingold law created spending limits on national parties and imposed rules about the financing of non-candidate ads that run during a campaign. Opponents see it as an infringement on free speech.) [italics in original]

Failure to be truthful or positive:

Sen. McCain’s campaign has been as disappointing as his move toward party orthodoxy. More than his opponent, he has run a relentless stream of commercials that have been discredited by nonpartisan fact-checkers. (Last week, all his ads were negative.)

Failure to look forward:

He has articulated no vision for the country other than to suggest that it should believe in him as an individual, as a war hero of independent judgment.

Failure to select an even minimally acceptable running mate for VP:

…She is shockingly lacking in presidential qualifications. Some of Sen. McCain’s most enthusiastic supporters have been forced to admit this. Her defenders say her resume compares well with Sen. Obama’s, but it does not.

Alaska is tiny in population and atypical in its issues. And she’d been governor for only a year and a half when she was tapped. At any rate, as some interviews have shown, she’s no Barack Obama.

Sen. McCain presents her as a fellow “maverick.” Nonsense. The important sense in which he’s been a maverick has been his willingness to flout conservative orthodoxy. But she’s an orthodox conservative and then some, opposing abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and, for example, long denying man-made global warming.

…He royally blew the most important decision he has ever had to make in politics.

The selection undercuts Sen. McCain’s effort to sell himself as the one who is most ready for the presidency. So does another momentous decision.

Failure to accurately assess Iraq:

He was one of the most gung-ho advocates of the Iraq war. He confirmed in the first presidential debate (right at the end) that he sees Iraq as the great cause of our time. It is no such thing.

Given that there were no weapons of mass destruction, given that there were no important ties between Saddam Hussein and the perpetrators of 9/11, given that al-Qaida is resurgent today, Iraq is a tragically costly diversion from a sound foreign policy, which, of course, must focus on the terrorist threat where it really exists.

Failure of the Republican Party:

Meanwhile, the Republican Party is asking the American people to ignore their discontent with President George W. Bush and give the party another chance. But if a party can retain the presidency after failing in it — just by putting up somebody different — then accountability is undercut. Failure should exact a political price. If it doesn’t, failure becomes harder to deter.

Lining all that up against the strengths they see in Barack Obama, such as:

Demonstration by behavior of his toughness, resilience and ability and potential to lead:

Barack Obama has been in the public spotlight for four years (since his memorable debut speech at his party’s 2004 convention). He has withstood relentless, withering attacks. The more attacks he survives, the more comfortable people seem with the idea of him as a leader.

Basing belief in his promises for the future on the accomplishments of his past:

Any alert citizen must be skeptical that Sen. Obama can accomplish all he wants, must know that he has not answered all the reasonable questions about his plans, must wonder about the trade-offs. But such doubts are there about all candidates.

For some people, the liberal tag makes Sen. Obama a nonstarter. But he built his early appeal around the promise to get beyond the liberal-conservative wars, to show a level of respect for the views of others that helps build a new kind of politics. It is his most ambitious promise.

I look forward to reading McCain supporters’ fisking of this editorial, but to me, it reads as cautious, but fair and, dare we use this word too much, hopeful.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:12 pm October 11th, 2008 in Barack Obama, Elections, Endorsements, John McCain, Ohio, Politics, Voting, WH2008 

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One Response to “Dayton Daily News endorses Obama”

  1. 1 Plunderbund - » Who Will The Plain Dealer Endorse? on October 11th, 2008 11:48 pm

    [...] While we wait to see who they endorse (Obama, of course), I got some news today that seems to support my side: The Dayton Daily News endorsed Barack Obama [...]

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