Even lib newspapers are dumping Obama this year.
(White House 12)
Nearly one in five major newspapers that backed Barack Obama in 2008, now support Mitt Romney for president.
Investors reported, via Say Anything:
President Obama spent roughly half an hour last Tuesday on the phone with the Des Moines Register’s publisher and editor, desperately trying to win the influential Iowa newspaper’s endorsement for a second term.
“You’ll feel better when you give it,” Obama told them, after touting what he said were four years of accomplishments, along with promises of strong economic growth should he get four more years.Three days later, the Register endorsed Mitt Romney — the first Republican the paper has backed in 40 years.
Not only that, but the editors blasted Obama, saying his “best efforts to resuscitate the stumbling economy have fallen short” and adding that “nothing indicates it would change with a second term.”
They didn’t think Obama “would lead in the direction the nation must go.” And they trashed Obama for hardening the partisan divide, which “hampered not only the economy, but the entire country.”
Ouch.
The paper also argued that the single most important issue facing the country was economic growth, and that Romney had the experience, the proven leadership ability and the right prescription to “unlock this nation’s economic potential.”
The Register isn’t the only newspaper to abandon Obama this year after eagerly endorsing four years ago.
In fact, of those major metro dailies that have announced their picks, more than one in five that had previously backed Obama are now pushing Romney, according to a tally by the American Presidency Project. Most, like the Register, had a history of endorsing Democratic presidents.
