http://www.ohio.com/editorial/editorials/obama-for-president-1.343675
Obama for president
Published: October 20, 2012 - 10:08 PM
Four years ago, Barack Obama succeeded where Democrats long have struggled. On Election Day, he carried such states as Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia. His message resonated, that one of hope and change, of remaking the culture of Washington, the candidate of a new generation ready to apply what works to the country’s problems. And now? The president faces a struggle for re-election, Mitt Romney benefiting not just from the troubled economy but also from the grandiose promises of Obama the candidate.
Washington wasn’t going to change. If anything, Republicans grasped the stakes: Continued wrangling and gridlock would reflect poorly on the president, his pledge proving empty. So disappointment burdens the president’s pursuit of a second term. Yet he shouldn’t be measured merely against his soaring words. What matters are his real accomplishments and the direction he proposes for the years ahead.
On both those counts, he has succeeded far more than his critics contend. We recommend the re-election of Barack Obama on Nov. 6.
Recall how dire things were when he arrived at the White House, the economy plunging downward, at a pace much worse than almost anyone thought, contracting 8.9 percent in the final quarter of 2008, and then another 6.5 percent the following three months. The job losses were staggering, the contraction the most severe since the Great Depression. The blows to housing, construction and finance made certain the recovery would be slow and halting, many coping with diminished assets and heavy debt, all of it setting back demand.
In response, the Obama White House and a Democratic Congress acted as aggressively as the political landscape would allow. They enacted a stimulus package that prevented something much worse and set the economy on a path of growth. They rescued the auto industry. They strengthened regulation of Wall Street.
Ohioans should know the makeover of General Motors and Chrysler avoided what would have been calamitous, liquidation, no less, the ripple effect upending lives far removed from automakers and their suppliers.
The accomplishments on the president’s watch haven’t stopped there. The list is impressive and bears repeating, if just in part:
• Health-care reform, a landmark advance toward universal care, long sought, finally achieved.
• A restructured student loan program and expanded Pell Grants.
• A modernized food-safety system.
• The repeal of the corrosive “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against gays in the military.
• A dramatic increase in fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks.
• Greater clarity and accountability in the way credit-card companies operate.
• An end to restrictions on stem-cell research.
• A deal to cut $1.5 trillion in spending, or half the amount proposed by Bowles-Simpson.
• Limits on mercury and other toxic emissions, rules 20 years in the making.
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