Big Endorsements for Clinton, Obama, McCain

The first big newspaper endorsements are out, and on the GOP side they are a tad surprising. The Democratic endorsements split between the top two in the top tier — the Boston Globe endorsed Barack Obama and the Des Moines Register endorsed Hillary Clinton. The Republican endorsement from the Globe? John McCain. For the Register? John McCain. What's going on here?

The Democratic choices were hard to make, according to both papers, and the reasoning for each choice boiled down to fine details: that Obama inspired the imagination and is possessed of a global understanding of America's problems; that Clinton exudes the confidence and has the experience to be the best president in the field. The Register endorsement is a big boost for a Clinton campaign that appeared to be wavering a little in the past few weeks, and the Globe endorsement has no small implication for Obama in New Hampshire's caucus, which is just a few days after Iowa's.

On the Republican side, all of the big front-runners failed to get the nod essentially because of McCain's resume and enduring campaign traits. The Globe rides the straight-talk express, despite disagreements with McCain on issues like the war in Iraq:

CONVENTIONAL wisdom among political handlers used to hold that a candidate needed to capture the political center. The last two presidential campaigns proved that wrong. The Republicans scraped out victories by pressing just enough buttons and mobilizing just enough voters. But such wins breed political polarization and deprive a president of the political capital needed to ask Americans to sacrifice in difficult times.

The antidote to such a toxic political approach is John McCain. The iconoclastic senator from Arizona has earned his reputation for straight talk by actually leveling with voters, even at significant political expense. The Globe endorses his bid in the New Hampshire Republican primary.

The Des Moines Register thinks of McCain as a hero in a field of chamers:

In an era of instant celebrity, we sometimes forget the real heroes in our midst. The defining chapter of McCain’s life came 40 years ago as a naval aviator, when he was shot down over Vietnam. The crash broke both arms and a leg. When first seeing him, a fellow prisoner recalls thinking he wouldn’t live the night. He was beaten and kept in solitary confinement, held 5 years. He could have talked. He did not. Son of a prominent Navy admiral, he could have gained early release. He refused.

The one-time playboy emerged from prison a changed, more serious man. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 and the Senate in 1986, he has built an unconventional political career by taking stands based on principle, not party dogma, and frequently pursuing bipartisanship.

In the current field of Democrats, there are plenty of candidates who would make fine presidents, and I suppose in the end the distinction really will come down to internal preferences for voters fired by the candidates' various talents or campaigns or histories. Because the field is so strong, the results are potentially volatile and could break in any number of ways.

In the Republican field, many of the frontrunners are high on personality and name ID and low on depth; the possibilities in that field are apparently narrower than we might have imagined. McCain could emerge as the only reasonable Republican choice, illustrated by picking up two big endorsements when several months ago many pundits were either writing him off or bracing for him to meltdown, including me. The logic of the endorsements for McCain — neither paper agrees with him on big issues, but both seem to place emphasis on his experience, as well as the fact that he is what he is, a known quantity, that doesn't hide what he feels or how he works — indicate that the GOP field really is weaker than the star projections of Romney, Giuliani, and Thompson would indicate.