The Chicago Tribune announced Wednesday it would not endorse anyone for the Democratic presidential primary, and said neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders were worthy of its support.
The paper was able to find one Republican to support, Sen. Marco Rubio. But when it came to the Democratic choices, the paper accused both candidates of pandering to those who want the federal government to spend more and more.
“This being a free country, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are welcome to pander however feverishly they wish, promising vast new expenditures by a federal government already committed to wildly more spending than its taxpayers and its low-growth economy can afford,” the board wrote.
For the Tribune, Sanders’ economic platform is little more than fantasy, rendering him an unserious candidate. And by ripping off much of Sanders’ positions, Clinton, too, is an unserious person for the White House, it added.
“Given the distance from economic reality that Clinton and Sanders have catapulted in their exhortations, we cannot endorse either of them in the Illinois primary election,” the board wrote.
In the end, the only person worthy of the Tribune’s endorsement is Marco Rubio. The Tribune outright declared Trump unfit for office, and added that Cruz and Kasich were also bad choices. That left Rubio.
“No candidate in this cycle has ridden more ups and downs than Marco Rubio. With so much attention paid to quirks … many Republicans seem not to have noticed his fundamental GOP message of opportunity and uplift,” the board wrote.
“The nonpartisan Tax Foundation calculated that the tax plan Rubio floated with Sen. Mike Lee would raise after-tax incomes for the bottom 10 percent of earners by 44 percent, chiefly via expanded credits. Spending limits, line-item veto, a balanced-budget amendment — all Rubio policy pillars. Crucially, his foreign affairs expertise vastly exceeds that of his rivals. We like his youth, his bilingual fluency and the fact that he isn’t one more Republican who’s been standing in line, awaiting his turn to run,” it added.
For these reasons, the paper argued, the Florida senator is the obvious choice for people voting in the states Republican primary.
“Right here is where liberal and conservative critics fire howitzers at this or that Rubio drawback,” it wrote. “We look forward to debating those points in a general election campaign. But we won’t be able to do so if Trump or Cruz is the nominee. The Tribune today endorses Marco Rubio for the Republican presidential nomination.”
