Could the fat lady be warming up her vocal cords up in the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney?
It may well be the case, as South Florida’s left-leaning Sun Sentinel Editorial board has surprisingly issued an endorsement of Republican Governor Mitt Romney over President Obama. This endorsement is no doubt a shocker, to many of us here in South Florida, as the Sun-Sentinel has an established track record of left-leaning bias in its political articles and endorsements that have clearly slanted towards the Democrat Party and its candidates.
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To its credit, look at how specific the Sentinel was in its endorsement of Romney-Â
 Brush away all the rhetoric, all the vitriol, all the divisiveness from the presidential campaign. To most Americans, only one thing matters — the economy.
Four years into Barack Obama’s presidency, economic growth is sputtering. Family incomes are down. Poverty is up. Business owners are reluctant to assume risk in the face of unending uncertainty. Many are holding on by their fingernails, desperate for signs of an economic recovery that will help them provide for themselves, their employees, their customers and their communities. When President Obama came into office in 2009, the economy was in freefall and though untested, he inspired us with his promise of hope and change. Now, four years later, we have little reason to believe he can turn things around.
 So while we endorsed Obama in 2008, we recommend voters choose Republican Mitt Romney on Nov. 6.
A leader’s job is to create an environment where people can do their best work — in this case, a marketplace where good jobs can grow. Obama deserves credit for supporting the American auto industry during a time of enormous peril. And the federal stimulus — which was backed by both parties, and largely distributed by Florida’s Republican-led legislature — helped build roads, dredge shipping channels and keep teachers employed, among other things.
 But today, rather than articulate a compelling vision for growth, the president falls back on the tired talking point of increasing taxes for the wealthy. Americans want our tax code to be fair — and fixed; there’s no question about that. But it’s hard to see how raising taxes is going to kickstart jobs in the private sector.
  We believe Romney will help this nation find the political will to address the challenges with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We believe the best chance to get America back working again is to elect Mitt Romney. That’s why we endorse him for president.
The recent endorsements that Romney has received from many newspaper editorial boards across the country that had endorsed Barack Obama back in 2008 are very encouraging for Romney, and they’re likely telling of the shift that has also occurred in the broader electorate away from Obama.
The Sentinel also endorsed Democrat Senator Bill Nelson over Congressman Connie Mack, but notice how the Sentinel does not refer to any “job creating” accomplishments of Nelson’s-
That leaves us, and voters, with their records and their campaign platforms to consider. On that basis, Florida would be much better off re-electing Bill Nelson.
Nelson is a veteran public servant — a two-term U.S. senator, former state insurance commissioner, U.S. House member and state legislator.
 In the Senate, Nelson has been a champion for NASA and Florida’s role in the U.S. space program. A law he co-authored in 2010 wisely extended the life of the International Space Station and supported the development of commercial spacecraft, both positive developments for Florida and the space program as a whole.
Nelson has helped protect Florida’s coastal environment, tourism economy and military training areas from offshore oil drilling. A law he and then-U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida got passed in 2006 still keeps rigs at least 125 miles from Florida’s Gulf Coast. He helped block efforts in 2010 to breach the buffer.
 Nelson’s other priorities in this campaign — including energy independence, consumer protection, job creation, cyber security and deficit reduction — are sensible. We’re hoping that he will become more of a leader in the Senate, as a member of both the Budget and Finance committees, in efforts to broker a long-term budget deal. For a veteran senator, he has been too timid on controversial national issues.  But Mack, a four-term U.S. House member from Fort Myers, has virtually no legislative accomplishments to call his own. His best known initiative, a balanced budget proposal called “The Penny Plan,” has gone nowhere. A cuts-only approach, it could whack trillions of dollars from Medicare, Social Security and the Pentagon.
Mack seems to be hoping that voters will go to the polls thinking they’ve got another chance to vote for his popular father, Connie Mack III, who represented Florida for two terms in the U.S. Senate. The younger Mack has even borrowed a page from his father’s political playbook, branding Nelson a “lockstep liberal” with President Obama.It’s true that Nelson cast votes for the president’s stimulus package in 2009 and health-care overhaul in 2010, but so did every other Democrat in the Senate. Independent analysts, including the National Journal, have ranked Nelson among the Senate’s more moderate Democrats.
With moderates an endangered species on Capitol Hill, it would be a loss for Florida and the nation if voters kicked out a centrist like Nelson in favor of a partisan like Mack.
The word on the street is that the Mack campaign hasn’t done themselves any favors in dealing with the press, and some reporters have even scoffed at how distant the campaign has been from the press. Â The Mack campaign is at odds with the Tampa Bay Times, who have also endorsed Senator Nelson; as well as with two of their top political writers- Adam Smith and the Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo.
At the end of the day, Obama and Nelson have advanced the same harmful and reckless agenda that never had any widespread support- as Mack would put it, they are both cut from the same “lock-step liberal” political cloth.  If the Sentinel were consistent in its application of demanding economic know-how and promoting policies that foster job creation, Nelson would never have received its endorsement. Mack should let this roll off his shoulders as the credibility of the Sun Sentinel has long lost its luster, at least with this ‘Mano.'(Shark) 😉
Nonetheless, in the greater scheme of things, it is good to see that the Sun Sentinel acknowledges that the defeat of President Obama is critical if the country has any intentions of getting its fiscal house in order and fostering a genuine economic recovery that motivates small businesses to expand their operations and hire more people.ÂIf you liked the post, please share it.