by John McCormick
CHARLES CITY, Iowa – Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain have won the endorsements of the Boston Globe, an influential newspaper that circulates widely in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire.
The newspaper announced the endorsements on its Web site this evening in advance of the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary.
The editorial board wrote that Obama, an Illinois Democrat, fulfills America’s need for “a president with an intuitive sense of the wider world.” It said McCain, an Arizona Republican, ”has done more than his share to transcend partisanship and promote an honest discussion of the problems facing the United States.”
The Globe’s endorsements come just hours before The Des Moines Register, the largest paper in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa, is expected to announce its endorsements.
The Globe said Obama’s diverse and international life experiences were a plus. “The most sobering challenges that face this country — terrorism, climate change, disease pandemics — are global,” the board wrote. “America needs a president with an intuitive sense of the wider world, with all its perils and opportunities. Barack Obama has this understanding at his core.”
Noting that Obama, if elected, would be the nation’s first post-Baby Boom president, the Globe addressed his relative lack of Washington experience compared to several of his Democratic rivals. ”It is true that all the other Democratic contenders have more conventional resumes, and have spent more time in Washington,” the board wrote. “But that exposure has tended to give them a sense of government’s constraints. Obama is more open to its possibilities.”
McCain was praised as a straight talker and called an antidote to the “toxic political approach” of the last two presidential elections.