Sunday Endorsements For Obama

More endorsements for Obama today. First, North Carolina's largest newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, endorsed Obama with praise for his numerous strengths:

As to Sen. Obama, he's one of the most powerful, effective speakers to seek the presidency in years. He offers a different vision of politics. Is he ready for to be president? His relative inexperience is reason for concern. He has been a U.S. senator for three years, an Illinois state senator for eight. He has no executive experience.

Experience is important, but it's no substitute for good judgment and the ability to assemble and wisely use capable advisers. George W. Bush had six years' experience as governor of a big, complex state, yet his administration has made some of the worst decisions in recent history.

Sen. Obama is a man of uncommon intelligence. He's a graduate of Columbia University with a law degree from Harvard, where he was editor of the law review. He bypassed lucrative job opportunities to become a community organizer with a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor Chicago neighborhoods plagued with crime and joblessness.

[...]

Early in the campaign, Sen. Obama said, "We want a politics that reflects our best values. We want a politics that reflects our core decency, a politics that is based on a simple premise that we stand and fall together."

Yes, we do.

And also some well-deserved criticism of Hillary and the way she has run her campaign:

Yet we're troubled by, to cite a few examples, these aspects of her presidential campaign:

• Many of her supporters seem intent on depicting Sen. Obama as the Jesse Jackson of 2008, a leader who appeals to an ethnic minority but not to the broader electorate needed to win.
• She sometimes exaggerates her influence and experiences, as when she claimed she "helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland" and said she ducked under sniper fire in Bosnia.
• Florida and Michigan were stripped of national convention delegates after breaking party rules by scheduling their primaries too early. The candidates didn't campaign in them. Yet after Sen. Clinton did well in those states, she pushed to change the rules and count the votes. That's a cynical, self-serving effort to corrupt the selection process.
• Her tendency to tell voters what they want to hear is disturbing. Her proposal to suspend the federal tax on gasoline this summer is campaign gimmickry, not leadership. Her assertion that she was a critic of NAFTA from the beginning is simply unbelievable. The record shows she was an ardent advocate of the trade deal.

Some Democrats accept that as just the way the political game always has been played. Perhaps it is. But is that the best Americans can expect? We think not.

Notice they, like many other endorsements of late, mention her shameless pandering on the gas tax, further evidence that while some voters may be fooled (and possibly enough to squeak out a win in Indiana), the better educated observers see it as a perfect example of why she shouldn't be our nominee.

Also, the largest newspaper in Kentucky, the Louisville Courier-Journal, endorsed Obama today:

...Americans have responded, with a surge in voting and registration.

Sen. Barack Obama referred to that excitement in a teleconference interview last week with this newspaper's editorial board. "We were always the longshot," he said. "The fact we've done so well speaks to the hunger of the American people for a different message and a different direction."

We agree, and we also believe that Sen. Obama is the Democratic candidate better equipped to restore Americans' hope for the future and to bring change to Washington.

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...we applaud Sen. Obama's opposition to a suspension of the federal gasoline tax, which Sen. Clinton favors. He is right that the move would save consumers little money, might be negated if oil companies raise prices and would encourage gasoline consumption instead of conservation.

Still, the differences are sufficiently minor that the key point becomes one that Sen. Obama stresses: Who is best able to actually accomplish new directions?

Sen. Obama's relentless focus on change, and the hordes of new voters he draws to the polls, would make it hard for his victory to be read as anything other than a mandate for changing how Washington works.

Again, notice the mention of her gas tax gimmick. A separate editorial in the Courier-Journal also praised Kentucky Rep. Ben Chandler for his endorsement of Obama, calling it "a dramatic step":

Political calculations were surely part of Chandler's decision, but perhaps he also saw an opportunity to put some of Kentucky's past behind it. When a Chandler supports a black candidate for president, that says something to some people. They should also recall that Happy went against the grain in 1960 and supported John F. Kennedy, who became the first Catholic president. Kennedy's religion probably kept him from carrying Kentucky that year, and Obama's ethnicity probably will do likewise this year. But Ben Chandler's risk of political capital pushes us into the future, from which we have too often shied away.

And the fake Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) followed the real Charlie Wilson in endorsing Obama: