Trib Endorses Obama, McCain

By Prescott Carlson on Jan 27, 2008 6:02PM

The Tribune Editorial Board released its list of endorsements in the upcoming Illinois primaries on February 5. Among the list are 3rd District Congressman Dan Lipinski (striking a blow to challenger and progressive blog champion Mark Pera) and tenacious ice cream magnate Jim Oberweis -- running for Congress in the 14th District -- who is determined to get himself elected to some office, somewhere, some time (we hear Sugar Grove is looking for a new mayor, perhaps he should start there). They also endorse Senator Dick Durbin's challenger, Steve Sauerberg, who has about as much chance of unseating Durbin as Spanky the Clown.

But the big news is obviously their endorsements for Democratic and GOP presidential nominees. Not surprisingly, our own Barack Obama gets the nod on the Dem side, as the Trib champions how the country has moved beyond the issue of race (er, while they lead the endorsement with it) and that while they agree that their endorsement is a "paradox", they feel Obama is best suited amongst the Democratic candidates to "help this nation move forward" and that Hillary Clinton "unifies only her foes."

John McCain picks up the Republican endorsement, in which the Trib makes a not so subtle dig at Rudy Giuliani:

Many Americans yearn for the holiday-from-history that was the 1990s. The Cold War had ended; the cataclysmic updraft of concrete dust and human DNA hadn't risen from Lower Manhattan.

But there will be no going back. The planet's lone superpower won't again have the privilege of ignoring -- of appeasing with strong words but soft pursuit -- the sworn enemies of this nation and its friends.

One Republican candidate for president dedicated himself to American honor, American duty, long before Sept. 11, 2001. The world of 2008 is the dangerous world John McCain unknowingly spent a military and political career preparing to confront.

McCain, who as of a few months ago was practically written off, has surged forward as Giuliani's strategy of ignoring all of the primaries until Florida has erased his previous dominance in the national polls. [Trib]