The Boston Phoenix endorses Barack Obama

There is no doubt that either Clinton or Obama would be superior to any of the Republicans. Elections, however, are about making a choice. When Democrats and Independents go to the polls next Tuesday in the so-called Super Tuesday contest, which is the closest approximation of a national primary our system has ever seen, the Phoenix urges a vote for Barack Obama.

Obama’s candidacy is not only about hope, not only about change. Most important of all, it is about the future.

Almost four years ago in Boston, Obama, then an Illinois state senator, electrified and inspired the Democratic convention as no national newcomer had done since 1948, when Hubert Humphrey championed the cause of civil rights.

Obama’s clarion call has been to reject the politics of confrontation and division as practiced by Bush, right-wingers, and talk-radio motor mouths.

His vision is of comity and common purpose. Eloquence is his calling card. It is penetrating, transcending verbal facility — the hallmark of someone at peace with himself, someone who is confident rather than cocksure.

Obama is also a maverick. There is no doubt that his promise outstrips his experience. That was also true of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. Vision was their strength; rhetoric was their means to an end.

Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Wilson so successfully captured the spirit of their times — synthesizing the best, marginalizing the worst — that history remembers them as representative leaders: presidents who made a difference.

The Phoenix believes that Obama has the capacity to do so, too, in a way that Clinton — for all that is admirable about her — does not.

Obama comes to the political marketplace unencumbered by the bonds of dynasty. By voting for him on Tuesday, citizens are maximizing the opportunity to put the recent past behind them and to start anew.

There is a degree of uncertainty in all of this. Promise and progress are never risk free. But in matters of policy and program, the disparities between Obama and Clinton are so minimal as to be all but meaningless. The horse trading and compromise with Congress that would be necessary to enact either of their agendas further level the playing field.

For those still uncertain as to whether they will choose Obama or Clinton on Tuesday, consider this: when it came to the defining issue of the past several years, Iraq, Obama was right and Clinton was wrong. Clinton’s vision was clouded. Obama’s vision was clear.

If ever there were a need for clarity — of purpose and resolve — it is now. Society is atomized. The economy is shaky. And our international standing is compromised.

Together, Obama and Clinton — each in their own way, each according to their own talents and nature — have restored a sense of hope and promise to the progressively minded electorate. Women, African-Americans, Latinos, and people under 40 (especially younger voters) have been energized.

We believe that, come the final election in November, Barack Obama has the talent and temperament to consolidate this refreshing enthusiasm and energy, and to put the sorry Bush years behind us.

Vote for Obama as if history depends on it. America’s future certainly does

http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid55453.aspx

this are too GOP to mean anything.

I dont think they did a dem endorsement.

...the Phoenix Boston?

:-)

I remember they had a nice story with Kerry a while back, covering an angle the mainstream wouldn't touch. Something about the Downing Street memo, I think.