The Chicago Tribune on Friday endorsed President Obama for re-election — marking only the second time ever that the Republican-leaning paper endorsed the Democratic candidate for president, following their previous backing of him in 2008.
The paper praised Obama for guiding the country through the 2008 financial crisis:
There was little reason to think the rookie president elected that November would be more than a bystander as those dominoes toppled. But that rookie, Barack Obama, with quick study and sure gait, led an administration effort to stabilize the U.S. economy. Through that long passage, still incomplete, Obama often has exhibited pragmatism when conventional liberal responses — As for me, I blame Wall Street! — wouldn’t have surprised any among us.
While acknowledging that the paper’s own editorial principles would seem to be closer to Romney, the Tribune nevertheless hammered him on his own many policy shifts:
And Mitt Romney? He projects himself as a sure-handed chief executive, a proven leader who solves problems. He has, though, been astonishingly willing to bend his views to the politics of the moment: on abortion, on immigration, on gun laws and, most famously, on health care.
