It has been a great weekend for Senator Obama's campaign. First his campaign announced that it had raked in more than $150 million in September, a staggering amount by any measure, raising the campaign total to a staggering $605 million, the highest ever in U.S. presidential politics. This bonanza came in small amounts-an average of $86-from millions of contributors: the campaign added 632,000 new donors in September, raising the total number of contributors to 3.1 million. Wish cash to burn, the Obama campaign enters the last two weeks with a decisive financial advantage over the McCain campaign which accepted public funding that limits campaign expenditure to $84 million. It can buy all the advertising it needs, and they are doing exactly that, taking the campaign into the Republican heartlands, states that have not voted Democratic candidates for a generation or more from North Carolina to North Dakota, Virginia to West Virginia, Indiana to Georgia, where the race is tightening, if the polls are to be believed, in favor of Senator Obama.
Then came an avalanche of endorsements from some of the nation's leading newspapers, some of which have not endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate in a long time or ever. In the newspaper endorsement sweepstakes Senator Obama is leading Senator Obama by a 3 to 1 margin as he wins backing from papers in most of the nation's biggest cities from Boston to New York, Chicago Los Angeles. The endorsement from The Washington Post was predictable. The paper editorialized:
The nominating process this year produced two unusually talented and qualified presidential candidates. There are few public figures we have respected more over the years than Sen. John McCain. Yet it is without ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president.
The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. Yes, we have reservations and concerns, almost inevitably, given Mr. Obama's relatively brief experience in national politics. But we also have enormous hopes.
Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building. At home, we believe, he would respond to the economic crisis with a healthy respect for markets tempered by justified dismay over rising inequality and an understanding of the need for focused regulation. Abroad, the best evidence suggests that he would seek to maintain U.S. leadership and engagement, continue the fight against terrorists, and wage vigorous diplomacy on behalf of U.S. values and interests. Mr. Obama has the potential to become a great president. Given the enormous problems he would confront from his first day in office, and the damage wrought over the past eight years, we would settle for very good...Read the rest of the Editorial here
Less expected was the endorsement from The Los Angeles Times that had not endorsed any presidential candidate since 1972 when it supported the ill-fated Richard Nixon. The paper declared:
It is inherent in the American character to aspire to greatness, so it can be disorienting when the nation stumbles or loses confidence in bedrock principles or institutions. That's where the United States is as it prepares to select a new president: We have seen the government take a stake in venerable private financial houses; we have witnessed eight years of executive branch power grabs and erosion of civil liberties; we are still recovering from a murderous attack by terrorists on our own soil and still struggling with how best to prevent a recurrence.
We need a leader who demonstrates thoughtful calm and grace under pressure, one not prone to volatile gesture or capricious pronouncement. We need a leader well-grounded in the intellectual and legal foundations of American freedom. Yet we ask that the same person also possess the spark and passion to inspire the best within us: creativity, generosity and a fierce defense of justice and liberty.
The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president.
Our nation has never before had a candidate like Obama, a man born in the 1960s, of black African and white heritage, raised and educated abroad as well as in the United States, and bringing with him a personal narrative that encompasses much of the American story but that, until now, has been reflected in little of its elected leadership. The excitement of Obama's early campaign was amplified by that newness. But as the presidential race draws to its conclusion, it is Obama's character and temperament that come to the fore. It is his steadiness. His maturity.
These are qualities American leadership has sorely lacked for close to a decade. The Constitution, more than two centuries old, now offers the world one of its more mature and certainly most stable governments, but our political culture is still struggling to shake off a brash and unseemly adolescence. In George W. Bush, the executive branch turned its back on an adult role in the nation and the world and retreated into self-absorbed unilateralism ... Read the rest of the Editorial here
Surprising was the endorsement from the historically Republican newspaper, The Chicago Tribune, which had never endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate since its establishment in 1847.
However this election turns out, it will dramatically advance America's slow progress toward equality and inclusion. It took Abraham Lincoln's extraordinary courage in the Civil War to get us here. It took an epic battle to secure women the right to vote. It took the perseverance of the civil rights movement. Now we have an election in which we will choose the first African-American president . . . or the first female vice president.
In recent weeks it has been easy to lose sight of this history in the making. Americans are focused on the greatest threat to the world economic system in 80 years. They feel a personal vulnerability the likes of which they haven't experienced since Sept. 11, 2001. It's a different kind of vulnerability. Unlike Sept. 11, the economic threat hasn't forged a common bond in this nation. It has fed anger, fear and mistrust.
On Nov. 4 we're going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.
The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.
Coming from Obama's hometown of Chicago, the paper sought to assure its readers it knew the real Obama, as if in response to the McCain campaign's insidious questioning of Obama's character and patriotism:
Many Americans say they're uneasy about Obama. He's pretty new to them.
We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president.
We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.
The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics. Read the rest of the Editorial here
And Senator Obama has been getting endorsements from some diehard Republican ideologues. The left-leaning periodical, The Nation, took special delight in announcing "Christophers for Obama: Buckley and Hitchens":
This is how bad it has gotten for John McCain.
Even the defenders of the Iraq War are deserting the Republican nominee who once thought he might "surge" into the Oval Office.
Yes, he has lost the Christophers.
In recent days, he has lost both Christopher Buckley and, now, Christopher Hitchens. Both have announced their plans to vote for man who opposed launching the Iraq War: Democrat Barack Obama.
First, Buckley, the apple-did-not-fall-from-the-tree son of William F., writes a column titled, "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama"....
Then, Christopher Hitchens, erstwhile former Nation columnist turned Iraq warrior, writes a column headlined: "Vote for Obama: McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace." .... Read the rest of the article here
This reflected what the New York Times called "Unease in the Conservative Commentariat":
In recent weeks some prominent conservative intellectuals seem to have discovered they have two hands after all. In column after column, these writers have alternately praised the virtues of John McCain and Sarah Palin and lamented their shortcomings.
The syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, for example, wrote in National Review on Sept. 26 that Governor Palin is "clearly out of her league" and should bow out of the campaign. (The conservative biweekly chose not to run a subsequent column in which Ms. Parker offered advice to Senator Barack Obama on how to win votes in Appalachia.)
On Oct. 4, one of the most influential conservative pundits, the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, rapped Senator McCain for his "frenetic improvisation" and, in what some interpreted as an endorsement of Senator Obama, praised his "first-class intellect and a first-class temperament," adding that these strengths "will likely be enough to make him president."
This came after another conservative beacon, George F. Will, compared the "Palin bubble" to the irrational exuberance of the deflated high- tech and housing bubbles and said Senator McCain was "behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high" in the way he responded to the financial crisis. He all but pronounced the Republican ticket finished after the final presidential debate last Wednesday night.
And then, to top it off, the novelist and humorist Christopher Buckley endorsed Mr. Obama. This decision, coming from the son of William F. Buckley Jr., one of the intellectual founders of the modern conservative movement, climaxed what seemed to be a mood of growing discomfort on the right.... Read the rest of the article here
But perhaps the biggest coup of them all was the endorsement of former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. The general, haunted by his salesmanship of the Iraq war, offered both ringing support for Senator Obama and censure of his Republic Party and Senator McCain's campaign. As reported on The Huffington Post:
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced Sunday that he will break with his party and vote for Sen. Barack Obama. "He has both style and substance. I think he is a transformational figure," Powell said on NBC's Meet the Press.
"I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities -- and you have to take that into account -- as well as his substance -- he has both style and substance," Powell said. "He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president."
Powell noted that McCain has been a good friend for 25 years, but expressed disappointment in the "over the top" negative tone of the GOP campaign, as well as in McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee.
"Now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president," Powell said. "And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made."
He also harshly criticized some of McCain's campaign tactics, such as the robocall campaign linking Obama to former 1960s radical Bill Ayers.
"Mr. McCain says that he's a washed up terrorist, but then why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have the robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow Mr. Obama is tainted. What they're trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that's inappropriate. Now, I understand what politics is all about, I know how you can go after one another and that's good. But I think this goes too far, and I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for."
Powell also spoke passionately against the insinuations by some Republicans that Obama is a Muslim.
"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian," he said. "But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America." Read the rest Read the rest of the article and listen to Powell's announcement here
Endorsements of course do not decide elections. We will know in two weeks whether Senator Obama will be elected president and have the opportunity to become a transformational figure in American history.
