Four of the major newspapers in Iowa have all endorsed Mitt Romney. Led by the Des Moines Register endorsement of Romney yesterday, the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Quad City Times, and Sioux City Journal have all followed suit. The Register, which endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency in 2008 (as well as every Democratic presidential candidate since 1972), has changed its mind:

The president’s best efforts to resuscitate the stumbling economy have fallen short. Nothing indicates it would change with a second term in the White House….

Barack Obama rocketed to the presidency from relative obscurity with a theme of hope and change. A different reality has marked his presidency. His record on the economy the past four years does not suggest he would lead in the direction the nation must go in the next four years.

The Quad City Times was just as “enthusiastic” – its word – in 2008 about Barack Obama. And they too have endorsed Mitt Romney:

The change that we’d hoped would elevate our economy wound up woefully short. The presidential gambit to place health-care reform ahead of economic recovery jeopardized both. President Barack Obama expended all of the presidential leadership on muscling through health care reform, leaving little for implementation and none for significant economic recovery….

Mitt Romney arrives at the presidency with global leadership experience and a track record of turnarounds. No need to rely on hope. His record includes evidence of change. He changed the trajectory of a failing U.S. Winter Olympics. He changed the path of Massachusetts with a health care plan we admire, even if Romney is now less than enthused.

As for the Cedar Rapids Gazette – yes, they too endorsed Obama in 2008, and have switched over to Romney in 2012:

No one in the Oval Office could have completely turned around all those things in the last four years. The world economy, including Europe’s major problems, have impacted us, too.

But we need to do better, much better, and soon if this great nation is to break out of its slump and avoid sliding back into a deeper one.

Romney’s record, experience and his heart give us reason to hope for better.

The only one of the four major newspapers to endorse John McCain in 2008 was the Sioux City Journal. And they, too, have endorsed Romney:

We concede Obama inherited a heaping plateful of problems in January 2009, but we do not believe his performance in managing them earned him a second term. Simply put, we don’t believe more government, more spending and more debt is the answer to what ails us, and we fear only more of the same in a second Obama term.

A question: How many of your fellow Americans seem genuinely energized and bullish about the nation’s future? Not many, we would guess.

With all four major Iowa newspapers endorsing Romney, Iowa is not only in play – there’s a good shot it goes red. As for the Obama campaign, their only response was Stephanie Cutter’s this morning on ABC’s This Week: the endorsements, she said, “didn’t seem to be based at all in reality.”

Or perhaps the Obama campaign isn’t.