‘The New Yorker’ Endorses Obama

In a detailed account of President Obama's political achievements and shortcomings compared with those of Mitt Romney, the editors of The New Yorker laid out all of the reasons for deciding Obama deserves a second term in the Oval Office. The magazine's editors tout the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of “don't ask, don't tell," the creation of 3.6 million private-sector jobs since 2009, and the killing of Osama bin Laden. They also acknowledge his failures both in personality—“withdrawn, even strangely passive”—and in policy: “Guantánamo, climate change, and gun control.” Still, “The Romney–Ryan ticket represents a constricted and backward-looking vision of America: the privatization of the public good,” they argue. “The reelection of Barack Obama is a matter of great urgency.”