3 Major Newspapers Endorse Obama This Morning (HI, TX)

Barack Obama picked up three major newspaper endorsements this morning - all in upcoming battleground states. Obama has been picking up the endorsements of editorial boards at a much greater pace than Clinton in recent weeks but I really think the following papers' endorsements really demonstrate the momentum his movement is gaining and (from what you'll read) the sourness that surrounds Hillary Clinton:

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The Honolulu Advertiser

It's all great reading to enjoy with your Froot Loops. I hope it gets you fired up and ready to go to help Barack Obama over the long Presidents Day Weekend!

Excerpts below the fold...

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times believes that inspiration and perspective is the key since the two candidates are nearly identical:

The differences on policy issues between Obama and Clinton are all but neglible. Both offer similar positions on universal health insurance, the Iraq war, the economy, immigration reform and the other major issues. The difference is how they would approach the presidency. Clinton is a two-term senator and former first lady. The 60-year-old Clinton touts her experience as the edge. Obama, the choice of the Editorial Board, brings something to American politics that has been missing for a long time: the ability to inspire. The campaign of the 46-year-old Illinois senator has demonstrated his ability to bring new voters to the polls in every primary held so far. This is evidence of Obama's ability to reawaken faith in representative democracy among Americans sick of leadership that depends on division and demonizing of opponents.

The nation's politics have been mired for too long in a game of one-upmanship and retribution. Americans are looking for leadership, but their politicians have been hungering for payback. Each election brings another bloody nose to be remembered, another wound to be nursed until the next go-round. Enough. The problems of the American people are too crucial to waste more time in bitter partisanship. The nation is stuck in a war that has already cost the lives of nearly 4,000 Americans. The image of the United States has been shamefully stained by betrayal of its democratic principles by the current administration. A recession looms and Americans are worried about their jobs, their homes, their pensions and their children's education. These are difficult issues to grapple with and they demand a broad and inclusive effort from the entire American political spectrum to arrive at solutions. This is the appeal of Obama. His candidacy is rooted in the notion that politics can be about solutions, not divisions, that elected leaders are elected to lead, not to drive wedges between groups of Americans. This is a chance to break from the past.

Obama is more than biography, but his family background -- the son of an African father and a Kansas mother, raised in Indonesia and the polyglot population of Hawaii -- gives him a wider perspective of the world. It is a profile much like that of a young generation of Americans who look beyond color and ethnicity and who are creating and being raised in biracial and even triracial homes. Obama's candidacy is a hope that the old ethnic and racial politics will fade. May that day come quickly.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram agrees and dotes a little on what he will say about America to the international community:

The Democratic candidates agree that the issues demanding immediate attention are unquestionably divisive: untangling the U.S. occupation in Iraq; shoring up a tentative economy; reforming Social Security, Medicare and immigration; finding a way for every American to get affordable healthcare; improving the environment.

Their approaches on how to address them are different. Clinton's policies are more detailed than Obama's but also more expensive.

[...]

Obama steps up, fresh and inspirational, with a message and an energy that transcend the demographic differences among voters that the media so stubbornly focus on: race, gender, age and economic standing.

On an international stage, his face representing the United States of America would speak volumes to a world community that has turned away from assisting this great nation.

The expectation and pressure on him to deliver change on a worldwide scale will be tremendous. If he continues to deliver the kind of turnout at the polls that he has shown so far, he would move onto that stage with a commanding mandate from the American people.

Now from our friends in the Pacific. The Honululu Advertiser thinks its more about substance than style:

For tomorrow's party caucus, when Hawai'i Democrats have a rare chance to influence the final outcome of the primary-election campaign, The Honolulu Advertiser endorses Barack Obama, recognizing his ideas and policies as being most closely aligned with the needs of the country.

Many others who've made that selection argue that the junior U.S. senator from Illinois stands a better chance of beating the more seasoned McCain. That's because Clinton, rightly or wrongly, accrued many detractors during her years as first lady — critics may feel comfortable enough with the socially moderate McCain to vote with the GOP.

But that's just a tactical analysis. It misses the more substantive points of Obama's very real credentials and, in particular, the power of his presidential platform.

[...]

After reviewing his ideas, the careful voter should consider Obama's experience. Born and raised in Hawai'i, Obama later settled in Chicago and became a community organizer with a church-based group, working to better living conditions in poor, high-crime neighborhoods. Later, with a Harvard law degree in hand, he practiced as a civil rights attorney and teacher.

During eight years in the Illinois state legislature he supported increased funding for healthcare and education; he also helped write bills to publicly finance judicial campaigns and create a state earned-income tax credit.

That work, and his undeniable personal charisma, helped propel him into the U.S. Senate, where he has managed to secure additional funding for veterans' medical care and energy development in his home state. He opposed the corporate-written Central American Free Trade Agreement, and he led the charge among those challenging the Bush administration's failure to protect New Orleans.

There is no single candidate who can possess all the attributes needed to guide a president through the impossibly complex challenges of that job. The central question, rather, is which candidate possesses the qualities that we need most?

The U.S. is a nation at war and in economic distress. The road back will be a long one, the journey likely to span more than one presidential tenure. The capacity for hope and the willingness to change, both rallying cries of the Obama campaign, are elements critical to that journey.

The Democrats should recognize that the ability to inspire and to persuade others to follow is no trivial thing, no superficiality.

It is, in fact, the critical aspect of leadership required at times like these, when only a more unified nation can find its way through the difficulties ahead.

The party needs to acknowledge the clarion call that's resonated through the past weeks of the presidential campaign. It needs Barack Obama.

As I said in the comments below, I won't pretend that editorial board endorsements necessarily have an influence on voters. If at all, they might help undecided voters make up their minds. But even that is tenuous at best.

What I think it does say is that newspapers are willing to put their necks on the line for Obama and what Obama represents. These endorsements are also a fairly decent gauge for whom has the momentum in said states.

These endorsements won't get people out to rallies or out to vote or out to volunteer.

These contests are really up to us. We have to get on the horn and talk to voters in Wisconsin, Hawai'i, Texas and Ohio. We have to make sure Obama has the resources for the long haul.

-fink

[Updated: Don't miss this Texas Action Diary from anna. I wish I could be down there helping you guys out!]