El Paso Times Endorses Barack Obama

February 10, 2008

The El Paso Times has endorsed Barack Obama…

It’s Obama: Illinois senator is better choice

El Paso Times Staff

Article Launched: 02/10/2008 12:00:00 AM MST

The El Paso Times recommends that El Pasoans voting in the March 4 Democratic presidential primary cast their votes for Barack Obama. A weary America, tired of the status quo, fed up with business as usual, is longing for a positive change — and Barack Obama is that change.

Of the two viable Democratic presidential candidates, Obama represents a fresh future rather than an inevitable harking back to the past — what was a divisive and contentious past for many.

Obama has developed a solid and believable platform that addresses Americans’ major concerns.

Paramount among those concerns are worries about the economy. Obama said on his Web site, "We are all in this together. From CEOs to shareholders, from financiers to factory workers, we all have a stake in each other’s success because the more Americans prosper, the more America prospers."

While that might sound like typical campaign rhetoric, Obama’s intent to provide tax relief for middle-class Americans and working families strikes a sympathetic chord, as do his plans to address homeownership, mortgage, financing and foreclosure problems that have devastated the economy.

He also has plans for increasing access to the workforce, something necessary to attack the problem of 37 million poor Americans.

Obama has equally reasoned plans for other areas of concern, such as immigration, homeland security, international trade and education. No one is naive enough to believe that, if he is nominated and elected, that all these ideas will come to fruition. But he’s on the right track — the track of positive change.

Obama says on his Web site, "I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington … I’m asking you to believe in yours."

It’s an attractive, and needed, challenge.