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1lilithcat
I work a short distance from Cantigny Estates, where Col. Robert McCormick is buried. I fully expect to see his corpse spinning down the road any moment now. This is the first time the Trib has endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate, and only the third time they've endorsed someone other than the Republican candidate. (The others were independent candidate Horace Greeley in 1872, and Theodore Roosevelt when he ran on the Progressive Party ticket in 1912.)
Read the editorial here.
Read the editorial here.
2theoria
The Trib had to go with the home team. It probably didn't help that McCain sought to show Obama has a flawed character by painting Obama as a Daley machine hack. Don't piss of little Richie.
4jasonseidner
I prefer the theory that these are such tough times that it's no longer about parties: it's about endorsing the better candidate.
5lilithcat
> 2
The Trib had to go with the home team.
That never cut much ice with them before. They endorsed Ike over Gov. Stevenson twice.
They endorsed Bush four years ago with an editorial that read like an endorsement of Kerry until you got to the punchline. They endorsed a guy for statewide office whom they had previously said was unfit to hold public office ever again -- but he was a Republican.
This is major.
The Trib had to go with the home team.
That never cut much ice with them before. They endorsed Ike over Gov. Stevenson twice.
They endorsed Bush four years ago with an editorial that read like an endorsement of Kerry until you got to the punchline. They endorsed a guy for statewide office whom they had previously said was unfit to hold public office ever again -- but he was a Republican.
This is major.
6theoria
This is spot on:
"The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office -- and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.
We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party's course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.
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."
I'm glad the Tribune's editorial board has a clear view of reality and isn't blinded by past loyalty to the Republican party.
"The Republican Party, the party of limited government, has lost its way. The government ran a $237 billion surplus in 2000, the year before Bush took office -- and recorded a $455 billion deficit in 2008. The Republicans lost control of the U.S. House and Senate in 2006 because, as we said at the time, they gave the nation rampant spending and Capitol Hill corruption. They abandoned their principles. They paid the price.
We might have counted on John McCain to correct his party's course. We like McCain. We endorsed him in the Republican primary in Illinois. In part because of his persuasion and resolve, the U.S. stands to win an unconditional victory in Iraq.
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."
I'm glad the Tribune's editorial board has a clear view of reality and isn't blinded by past loyalty to the Republican party.
7jasonseidner
Also, we've seen a close-up of McCain's "decision making". In debate one, his style didn't get a lot of support. In debate #2, he was criticized for not looking at his opponent. He was told he needed to show a "game changing" shift in debate 3, but he said basically the same stuff, while glaring.
In essence, he was told he was trying to ram a square peg in a round hole in debate one, tried a bigger hammer in debate two, and swung harder in debate three. All using the same peg.
This is not a guy who's likely to see the adjustments this country needs to make; as we've seen, he can't even make minor adjustments within his own campaign.
And let's face it--in a time when readership of newspapers is in steady decline, maybe the Tribune realizes that the last message they want to send to young voters is, "We're committed to the guy who's clearly living in the past."
In essence, he was told he was trying to ram a square peg in a round hole in debate one, tried a bigger hammer in debate two, and swung harder in debate three. All using the same peg.
This is not a guy who's likely to see the adjustments this country needs to make; as we've seen, he can't even make minor adjustments within his own campaign.
And let's face it--in a time when readership of newspapers is in steady decline, maybe the Tribune realizes that the last message they want to send to young voters is, "We're committed to the guy who's clearly living in the past."
8vq5p9
Wow! The Salt Lake Tribune just endorsed Obama.
9theoria
The endorsement raises an important point about McCain's judgment: picking Palin rather than Romney reveals a flaw in McCain's character. I assume McCain didn't pick Romney because his evangelical base wouldn't accept a Mormon on the ticket. Or perhaps because Romney has changed positions on "social issues" near and dear to the heart of that base. If McCain were a real maverick he would have chosen Romney and moved the Republican party back to the "center" of American political life. Instead, he felt shoring up the fringe was a priority. Having made this choice, he had to -- to use his metaphor -- swing a hatchet at Obama. If he had chosen otherwise, Romney could have presented a vision of economy policy that was coherent. Instead, the voters are presented with a Republican campaign based on guilt by association and innuendo. Rather than aiming a hatchet at Obama's head, Governor Palin (reprising the role of Shane Stant) is going for the kneecaps. It's no wonder that people like Colin Powell (who needs a booster shot of moral legitimacy himself) have endorsed a non-Republican, Obama, this year.
10jasonseidner
theoria>
McCain decided that winning was more important than standing by his principles. In the end, it's likely that he'll have lost both.
McCain decided that winning was more important than standing by his principles. In the end, it's likely that he'll have lost both.
11lriley
I think this is interesting commentary from (former?) conservative Wick Allison:
http://www.dmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=Core+Pages&type=gen&mod=Core+...
http://www.dmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=Core+Pages&type=gen&mod=Core+...
12theoria
Peggy Noonan takes a hatchet to Governor Palin:
"But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things.
Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122419210832542317.html
"But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things.
Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122419210832542317.html
13jasonseidner
That sums it up for me.
In the end, I keep thinking to myself, "Forget about vice president: how did this woman even get to be GOVERNOR?"
In the end, I keep thinking to myself, "Forget about vice president: how did this woman even get to be GOVERNOR?"
