On the heels of Wednesday’s endorsement of Mitt Romney by the traditionally liberal Nashville Tennessean, another longtime left-leaning newspaper– the Orlando Sentinel — has also endorsed President Barack Obama’s Republican challenger. The Sentinel’s endorsement will have a greater impact, since it comes from one of the largest newspapers in the key swing state of Florida.
Like the Tennessean, the Sentinel expressed strong disappointment in Obama’s record of performance:
Economic growth, three years into the recovery, is anemic. Family incomes are down, poverty is up. Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, highlighted these and other hard truths in this week’s second debate.
Even the September jobless numbers deserve an asterisk, because more than 4 million Americans have given up looking for work since January 2009.
And while the nation’s economy is still sputtering nearly four years after Obama took office, the federal government is more than $5 trillion deeper in debt. It just racked up its fourth straight 13-figure shortfall.
We have little confidence that Obama would be more successful managing the economy and the budget in the next four years. For that reason, though we endorsed him in 2008, we are recommending Romney in this race…
We reject the innuendo that some critics have heaped on the president. We don’t think he’s a business-hating socialist. We don’t think he’s intent on weakening the American military. We don’t think he’s unpatriotic. And, no, we don’t think he was born outside the United States.
But after reflecting on his four years in the White House, we also don’t think that he’s the best qualified candidate in this race.
We endorse Mitt Romney for president.
The tidal wave of liberal newspapers disappointed by Obama ready to publicly announce their support for Mitt Romney has begun.