JOBS ARE GROWING, NOT STAGNATINGEDITORIALNEW YORK TIMES
Mr. Obama has asserted his employment agenda, including school and infrastructure rebuilding and aid to states to hire teachers. This was detailed in his jobs bill from last year. He has also vowed a responsible approach to deficit reduction, including preserving tax cuts for most Americans while letting the high-end Bush tax cuts expire. Such approaches would work, but time and again they have met with a stone wall from Republicans, who have been determined to keep the economy as weak as possible to hurt Mr. Obama’s campaign. The Republicans’ last-minute tactic has been a cynical one — to make it clear that they will continue obstructing Mr. Obama if he wins. That is a hollow argument for Mr. Romney. And it does not change the fact that Mr. Romney has no good ideas and Mr. Obama has plenty.
OBAMA’S PROGRESSIVE GAMBLEEDITORIALWALL STREET JOURNAL
Mr. Obama has governed from the left not because he miscalculated his priorities but because these are his priorities. His first term is best understood as a race to put himself in the pantheon of the great progressive Presidents—Wilson, FDR, LBJ—who expanded the state’s control over the private economy and over the wants and needs of the American middle class. … Unable to run on his record, he has conducted a low-down re-election campaign based on destroying his opponent’s character. If the polls are right, even if he wins re-election, he will do so as the first President since Wilson to win with a smaller margin than he did the first time. But for Mr. Obama, this won’t matter. His great progressive gamble will have paid off.
THE DISCONNECT OF 2012ROBERT J. SAMUELSONWASHINGTON POST
To win, President Obama and Mitt Romney each seemed willing to say almost anything, no matter how twisted or misleading. The Obama campaign engaged in character assassination. If Romney could be cast as a bloodless capitalist, indifferent to average Americans, the campaign would have been all but finished. Romney’s promises struck many observers, including me, as often inconsistent and unrealistic…There were few details. To be sure, broad philosophical differences were clear. Romney is pro-business; Obama is pro-government. And some areas of agreement emerged: developing natural gas reserves, for instance. But mainly Obama and Romney evaded questions central to our economic future.
A FACE MORE CAREWORN, A CROWD LESS JOYFULDAMON WINTERNEW YORK TIMES
This time around, Mr. Obama wears the dual uniforms of candidate and sitting president, and with them, the weight of the institution and four difficult years of service. He is no longer the abstract embodiment of intertwined notions of Hope and Change. He is the president, with a record to defend. He can no longer ask for a leap of faith, only for four more years. He can only push, as his campaign posters simply state, forward. Unlike the soaring language of the last campaign, utilitarian calls to “just vote,” squabbles over saving Big Bird and cures for “Romnesia.” are more likely to be heard by voters. It is a decidedly more down-to-earth affair. Only four years separate the two campaigns, but aside from the man at the middle of them both, covering the campaign this year feels so different.
OUR CHOICE FOR AMERICA’S FUTURE: THE DAILY NEWS ENDORSES MITT ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENTEDITORIALNEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Four years ago, the Daily News endorsed Obama, seeing a historic figure … The hopes of those days went unfulfilled. … Romney’s approach is the stronger. Critically, he has tailored his policies to create jobs, jobs, jobs. The centerpieces of Romney’s plan call for spending restraint and rewriting the Internal Revenue code to lower rates by 20%. … No, Romney’s not perfect. His overall immigration policy falls below comprehensive reform, and he’s no friend of gun control. But, under these circumstances, growing the economy takes precedence. … The presidential imperative of the times is to energize the economy and get deficits under control… So The News is compelled to stand with Romney.
Drew Katchen