Martha's Vineyard Times endorses Romney and Scott Brown

This page endorsed President Obama in 2008. It was a mistake.

We didn't know Barack Obama well four years ago. What we did know didn't add up to much — no management, political, or leadership experience, and very young. And, there was an expressed but not demonstrated determination to cooperate with others to solve the mighty problems the nation faced. Still, there was brilliance as well as a strangeness in Mr. Obama that attracted voters who, as Democrats and later as voters of both parties, might have served themselves better by choosing the tested, mature, proven political commodity, Hillary Clinton. Besides, the clumsiness and poor judgment of John McCain made Mr. Obama look good.

We know Barack Obama better now. He is not what we imagined. He is a politician uncomfortable in the political business, a man of unwavering progressive convictions that are deeply at odds with the Founders' principles, as enshrined in the Constitution. That document and the Declaration protected the rights, economic and otherwise, that inhered in men and women and that were not bestowed by government, nor could they be withdrawn. Indeed, the goal was to constrain government, not free it from all restraint. Mr. Obama sees things differently, and in pursuit of his view, he has been relentlessly willing to pit Americans against their fellows: majority against minorities, men against women, rich against the middle class and the poor. It's no way to be leader.

Mitt Romney is a smart, decent man with an explicit understanding that the predicate for American success is a successful, growing American economy, accessible and enriching to all. That means reordering spending, taxation, and regulation, so that following generations are free to prosper, not bent beneath the profligate legacy of trillions in debt. He is a dependable moderate, a pragmatist, and a grownup, whose first order of business — as every bit of evidence makes clear — will be to cut through the hopeless partisan snarl in Washington.

Voters have heartfelt agendas of their own. They measure candidates against a personal hierarchy of issues. One cannot guess the metric that this voter or that one will use to make his or her selection. But, if getting things done, addressing debt, deficits, and the economy first, and doing so in ways that search for solutions both sides and the many interest groups can support is at the top of your list — Mr. Romney is the recommendation here.

Senator Scott Brown
How Scott Brown got to be the Republican Senator from Massachusetts is a political miracle, given the one-party complexion of government in the Bay State. But, voters like him. (Continues)