Oh, For Goodness Sake

Pittsburgh Post Gazette: Re-elect Obama: The made-over Mitt Romney is no alternative

When Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he was known as a moderate. But that man has disappeared and no new shake of the Etch A Sketch can bring him back. Despite this long campaign it’s hard to know what he believes besides the fact that he believes he should be president.

In making his case to be the nominee for his radically more conservative party, Mr. Romney had to pretend to be someone he wasn’t. As part of this makeover, he has promised to scuttle Obamacare, even though it was modeled after his own successful state health care plan, and with only vague notions of how to replace it.

Driven by the political need to repudiate Mr. Obama’s bailouts, he stooped so low as to say he would have allowed a large part of the auto industry in Michigan, where he grew up, to go into bankruptcy, which would have doomed it along with millions of jobs. This was not his father’s Republicanism. …

This well may be a generation-defining moment. What will America’s future be? Will this still be a land of opportunity and freedom for all people or just for the favored few? Because we still hope, we endorse for president Barack Obama, whose heart — unlike his challenger — has not wavered nor his principles changed.