The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the San Francisco Chronicle are endorsing Barack Obama in the upcoming Feb. 5 Democratic presidential primary.
The Obama campaign announced the Post-Dispatch endorsement Saturday. The Post-Dispatch, which is the largest paper in Missouri, also circulates in Southern Illinois. Voters in both states head to the polls on Feb. 5.
California voters also go to the polls on Feb. 5.
The Post-Dispatch writes that:
We disagree with the details of some of Mr. Obama's legislative proposals, particularly his heavy reliance on insurance companies as part of an overhaul of national health policy. But we are comforted by his legislative career in Springfield and in Washington, where he worked diligently across party lines, seeking common ground and, often, finding it. He offers a welcome return to civility and cooperation.
We're afraid that wouldn't be the case with his principal opponent for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. She has been a diligent senator since her election in 2001, but she is a lightning rod. There is a difference, too, between seeking consensus and "triangulating" core principles into positions palatable to campaign donors.
And we confess to a certain "Clinton fatigue." The emergence of the former president as the Luca Brasi of the campaign trail reminds us of the worst of the Clinton years: the divisiveness and the bickering; the too-casual, if artful, blend of truth and half-truth. We're not eager for the replay. As to John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina, he is the right man at the wrong time, a star whose light is eclipsed by the tail of a comet.
Comets don't come around that often. In January of 1961, Ann Dunham Obama was six weeks pregnant with Barack Obama Sr.'s child when President Kennedy said at his inauguration that "the torch has been passed to a new generation." It's that time again.
The full endorsement will be posted on the Post-Dispatch Web site, stltoday.com
The Chronicle writes that:
The American political system needs a period of reprieve and renewal.
It needs a reprieve from a White House that draws power from fear, sneers at any science that gets in the way of corporate or theocratic missions and stubbornly adheres to policies that leave the nation sinking in debt and mired in war. It craves a reprieve from the politics of bloodsport that prize clever calculation over courage, winning over principle, party label over national interest.
The renewal must come from a president who can lead by inspiration, who can set partisanship aside to define and achieve common goals, who can persuade a new generation of Americans that there is something noble and something important about public service.
There is no doubt about the Democrat with the vision and skills to bring that period of reprieve and renewal. It is Sen. Barack Obama.
The entire Chronicle endorsement can be read here.