On the heels of the Des Moines Register’s endorsement, Mitt Romney snagged endorsements today from the three other major Iowa papers: the Cedar Rapids Gazette, the Quad City Times, and the Sioux City Journal. Economic issues tipped the balance here, and the Gazette captured the sentiment expressed in all four endorsements:
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
Asked to comment on the spate of newspaper endorsements for Governor Romney, in particular the Register’s, Stephanie Cutter was all class, charging that the endorsement did not seem “based at all in reality.” She told George Stephanopoulos this morning:
Well, you know, they endorsed Mitt Romney in the primary, so this is not much of a surprise. It was a little surprising to read that editorial, because it didn’t seem to be based at all in reality, not just in the President’s record but in Mitt Romney’s record. It says that he’d reach across the aisle, which, it’s the exact opposite of what he did in Massachusetts. And, of course, over the course of running for President over these past six years, he’s never once stood up the far extreme right wing. Just this past week we saw it when he wouldn’t take down his ad for Richard Mourdock…he’s not willing to stand up when it matters.