Conservative Newspapers Endorse Obama

Not long ago I mentioned (perhaps only in the Washington State section) that the conservative Seattle Times endorsed Barack Obama. Well, now the even more conservative Stockton Record is endorsing Obama. The reasoning behind these two endorsements is very telling!

From the Seattle Times:

An economic Katrina is shattering the confidence of hardworking, middle-class Americans. The war that should never have been in Iraq is dragging on too long. At a time of huge challenge, the candidate with the intelligence, temperament and judgment to lead our nation to a better place is Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent. Obama is a little young, but also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that's OK. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip...

Our country is on the wrong track. Average, middle-class citizens have lost confidence that if they work hard, they can improve their lives, afford to send their kids to college and not be tossed out of their homes.

American optimism has been wracked by President George Bush and a previous Republican Congress. If you want change, you do not keep what is essentially the same team in power. You try something different. You vote for the stronger matchup, Obama and Sen. Joseph Biden, a smart and steady hand on foreign policy and other matters.

They further go into the details, issue by issue, as to why they prefer Obama, so I recommend reading the whole endorsement.

The Stockton Record of California largely agrees and also strongly praises Obama's achievements. And this is particularly amazing since the Stockton Record has not endorsed a Democrat for 72 years!! From the Stockton Record:

For eight years, American politics has been marked by smears, fears and greed. For too long, we've practiced partisanship in Washington, not politics. The result is a cynicism every bit as deep as that which infected the nation when Richard Nixon was shamed from office and when Bill Clinton brought shame to the office.

This must end, but John McCain can't do it. He can't inspire, nor can he really break from a past that is breaking this nation...

Republicans have tried repeatedly to paint Obama as an elitist. Hardly. He grew up in a single-parent home and, by the sheer force of his desire and cerebral horsepower, ended up at Harvard Law School, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

He could have gone for the money. He didn't. He went to Chicago, where he worked to give a voice to those who didn't have one.

That's hardly the mark of an elitist.

He hasn't lost touch with regular people, whereas McCain doesn't even know how many homes he owns.

The first person to try and convince me to vote for Obama was a former Green Party member who re-registered Democrat in order to support Obama. Now I see conservative papers whose suspicion of Democrats is well known endorsing Obama for the same reason my Green Party friend supported him. Obama is intelligent, thoughtful, inspiring and able to bring together Americans of all races and political philosophies. We sure can use that right about now.