Palm Beach Post Endorsement
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Barack Obama has set the tone for the presidential campaign, which is why The Post endorses him in the Florida Democratic primary.
One irony is that Sen. Obama has influenced all his major challengers despite his youth (46) and the fact that he was little-known nationally until his riveting address at the 2004 national convention. Another irony is that Sen. Obama is downplaying the state primary because of a fight between the national and state Democratic parties. But all the candidates are on the Jan. 29 ballot, and we hope that voters ignore the sideshows and turn out.
Why vote for Sen. Obama? Because his opponents, Democratic and Republican, now tout the "hope" and "change" on which Sen. Obama has campaigned from the start. No candidate has more directly and correctly addressed the unease that pervades the country after seven years of a terrible presidency.
On most major issues, little separates Sen. Obama from Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. All favor more aggressive health-care reform than any Republican. All favor tax policies that give more help to the middle class and ask more of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans who have benefited so much from the Bush tax cuts.
But for someone who spent eight productive years in the Illinois legislature and has been in the Senate for just three years, Sen. Obama has displayed impressive judgment, consistency and political maturity. Consider his statement opposing the Iraq invasion in 2002, before he even got to Washington:
"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than the best, impulses of the Arab world and strengthen the recruiting arm of Al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars; I'm opposed to dumb wars." Sens. Clinton and Edwards voted to authorize the invasion.
The real "hope" behind the Obama candidacy is that this son of a Kenyan father and Kansas mother can transcend not only race but the partisanship, stoked by special-interest money, that has paralyzed Washington and made Congress even less popular than President Bush. As The Almanac of American Politics notes, Sen. Obama worked with some of the most conservative Republicans - Kansas Sam Brownback on the genocide in Darfur and Oklahoman Tom Coburn on no-bid contracts for Katrina relief. With Richard Lugar of Indiana, the GOP's foreign-policy specialist, he secured money to confiscate shoulder-weapons that could be used against airliners.
For Democrats, there are more practical reasons to make Sen. Obama the nominee. Fairly or not, as The New York Times reported last month, many Democrats in swing states and vulnerable districts worry about having Sen. Clinton at the top of the ticket. Claire McCaskill, whose surprising win in Missouri two years ago allowed Democrats to retake the Senate, recently endorsed Sen. Obama.
But the promise of Sen. Obama goes beyond the practical. He has drawn huge crowds of young people and older voters who are suspicious of idealism yet drawn to this idealistic-sounding young man. Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Bill Clinton in 1992 each tapped into the disillusionment of their time and got to the White House. Not since Bobby Kennedy in 1968, though, has someone caused this sort of hopeful stir.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2008/01/20/a2e_obama_endorse_0120.html