Just weeks before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, the Hawkeye State’s largest newspaper has endorsed Mitt Romney.
The Des Moines Register editorial board lauded Romney’s “sobriety, wisdom and judgment.” The former Massachusetts governor stands out from the rest of the pack because he doesn’t tack to the far right to please primary voters, the paper writes.
“He may be accused of being too cautious, but choosing words carefully is a skill essential for anyone who could be sitting in the White House and reacting to world events,” the editorial board writes.
The editorial comes as Newt Gingrich’s campaign enjoys a new surge. But Newt is now starting to fall back — we just don’t know how far yet. He still leads the GOP pack, but by a smaller margin, according to a Wednesday Gallup poll.
But Gingrich only recently opened his first campaign office in Iowa, and the conservative establishment is going after him hard. The Des Moines Register, too, isn’t convinced Gingrich is the right guy.
“Newt Gingrich is an undisciplined partisan who would alienate, not unite, if he reverts to mean-spirited attacks on display as House speaker,” the paper writes. And Paul’s “libertarian ideology would lead to economic chaos and isolationism, neither of which the nation can afford.”
Of course, no endorsement of Romney would be complete without addressing the perennial candidate’s history of position changes. The Register writes:
Romney is accused of being a “flip-flopper.” He has evolved from one-time independent to moderate Republican in liberal Massachusetts to proud conservative today. He does not deny changing his position on some issues, but he will say he has made mistakes and has learned from them. Though Romney has tended to adapt some positions to different times and places, he is hardly unique. It should be possible for a politician to say, “I was wrong, and I have changed my mind.”
The Des Moines Register‘s endorsement comes just a day after Romney picked up South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s support. As Evan McMorris-Santoro writes here, Romney’s recent backers have struggled a bit to fully embrace him. Haley told CNN that Romney’s Massachusetts’s health-care plan — which is widely seen as a model for President’s Obama’s health care law –is not something she wants in South Carolina. And even the Register called Romney’s plan “strikingly similar” to the president’s health care law.
Here’s the TPM Poll Average of the Iowa contest:
Read the full editorial here.
