Politics: The case for Romney

So far, 28 of the 72 largest newspapers have endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Ten of them endorsed Barack Obama in 2008. (This year, nine of the 72 newspapers did not endorse anyone.) Here are some of the arguments they are making for the Republican ticket:

What the editorials said

Mitt Romney has been an “effective leader his entire career,” said The Detroit News, both in the private sector and in government. As a venture capitalist with Bain Capital, he gained the “ability to make a deal” between warring parties—experience he put to use as governor of Massachusetts, where he worked with Democrats to reform health care and education policy. In 2002, he proved his skill as a turnaround expert by transforming the Salt Lake City Olympics from a financial disaster into a success. It’s our belief that Romney will use his experience as a businessman and a leader to turn around our country. He will reconcile our divided Congress and “employ a results-oriented approach” to creating jobs and taming big government, all while being “mindful of his customer, the taxpayer.”

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We just can’t afford four more years of Obama, said the Boston Herald. His “vague promises of hope and change” have led us down a radical, redistributionist path. The $767 billion stimulus package offered the country nothing but “eco-cronyism,” with energy companies like Solyndra receiving taxpayer cash in return for political favors. Over the four years of economic stagnation since he was elected, more than 4 million people have given up even looking for work. And under Obama’s rule, a nation that was once a “shining beacon” of liberty around the world now prefers to “lead from behind.” That means bowing to Vladimir Putin in Russia, “looking away from the human rights abuses of our bankers in China,” and failing to stop Iran from moving toward nuclear armament. At home and abroad, “that’s not change we can believe in.”

Obama’s failures can be summed up in one “ham-fisted power play,” said the Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch. That’s Obamacare—the “massive, one-party overhaul of health care” he rammed through Congress instead of fixing the economy. Romney, on the other hand, has pledged to fix health care, said the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch, using “means-testing, market solutions, competition, and state-level innovation” to prevent Medicare and Social Security from going bankrupt. He has also promised to replace Obamacare with reforms that will neither “bust the budget” nor “trample individual rights.” Repealing this job-killing legislation “may be the most effective stimulus package passed in nearly a decade.”

What this election comes down to, said The Des Moines Register, is “pulling the economy out of the doldrums.” That will require a president able to boost confidence in the private sector, enabling it to renew spending and hiring. Judged by that yardstick, “Romney emerges the stronger candidate.” His formula of tax cuts and sweeping government obstruction out of the path of private industry should “unlock this nation’s economic potential.” Obama’s strategy of tax increases for the rich and more stimulus guarantees more division, and less private-sector confidence. The president is a “decent man,” said the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and in many ways he has tried his best. “But even he predicted he would be a one-term president if he failed to turn things around.” He has failed—and so the choice is clear.