Washington Post endorses Obama

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Citing John McCain’s “disappointing” campaign, his “irresponsible selection” of an inexperienced running mate and Barack Obama’s “supple intelligence” and “nuanced grasp of complex issues,” the Washington Post has endorsed Obama for president. While the nod acknowledges Obama’s “thin” resume and says the candidates are about even in terms of “keeping America safe in a dangerous world,” the endorsement is glowing in its praise for Obama and at times scathing about McCain:

OF COURSE, Mr. Obama offers a great deal more than being not a Republican. There are two sets of issues that matter most in judging these candidacies. The first has to do with restoring and promoting prosperity and sharing its fruits more evenly in a globalizing era that has suppressed wages and heightened inequality. Here the choice is not a close call. Mr. McCain has little interest in economics and no apparent feel for the topic. His principal proposal, doubling down on the Bush tax cuts, would exacerbate the fiscal wreckage and the inequality simultaneously. Mr. Obama’s economic plan contains its share of unaffordable promises, but it pushes more in the direction of fairness and fiscal health.

The Post is the capitol’s largest newspaper and, as Bloomberg notes, it reaches the Washington suburbs in northern Virginia, a state that hasn’t voted for a Democratic candidate since 1964 but is now surprisingly close.