Kentucky Newspaper Endorses Obama

this is surprising. the paper seems to walk a fine line between its readers and its endorsement.

kentucky lexington-herald: But while Clinton is an adept practitioner of politics as we know it, Obama is offering something new. He makes a convincing case that he can lead this country without sowing fear and dividing people, the cynical ploys of a political era that has run out of steam.

Obama has given voice to a widespread yearning not just for a changing of the guard but for a changing of the game. And that ability to express a people's aspirations is a mark of leadership.

Like President John F. Kennedy, another senator who electrified young people, Obama also has the substance to transform idealism into action.

The current storyline that he is an elitist who doesn't identify with the struggles of average people is absurd. His is a classic rags-to-riches story in the finest tradition of the American dream. He was still paying off his college loans until a few years ago.

It's worth remembering that Kennedy's Catholicism seemed as large an obstacle to popular acceptance in 1960 as Obama's biracialism today. Our endorsement of Obama is also a statement of our faith in the electorate to look deeper than skin tone.

It's disappointing that we haven't seen more of Obama in Kentucky, and more important, that he hasn't seen Kentucky beyond Louisville and Lexington.

This primary campaign has revealed a gap in his support, one that will be evident in Kentucky on Tuesday, as lower-income, less-educated, older and rural white voters line up behind Clinton.

Obama needs to better connect with these voters and learn about their concerns, if not to win, then to govern in the unifying way that he has promised.

Americans in huge numbers are fed up with an economy built on reckless borrowing, tax policies that favor the richest few, a bellicose and aimless foreign policy and an unnecessary war that has been incalculably costly.

Obama and Clinton both promise an exit from Iraq, though not precipitously. But only Obama called the war a mistake from the start.