Endorsement | Are we there yet?

This presidential campaign has widened rifts that divide the United States.

The abrasive campaigns have left us feeling a lot like 4-year-old Abby Evans, who broke down while listening to an NPR broadcast on the way to the grocery store in Fort Collins, Colo.

“I’m tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney,” she sobbed on a viral video.

While President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney present two healthy ideological alternatives for this country, they have placed politics over policies and resorted to launching petty attacks on each other to win votes.

The lack of substantive discussions in debates and ads has made it difficult to decipher what either candidate will act upon if he wins the election.

We want to tell Abby: “Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”

But are we? One of two choices will emerge on Tuesday, but there’s no guarantee that the political bickering will dampen. What this country needs is a leader who will move past partisan politics and propel it toward prosperity.

President Obama stands out for his progressive vision for this country and the world. We stand by his commitment to education and health care, to creating a more just and equitable society — one where women have the right to choose and everyone has the freedom to marry. But in order to realize this vision, the president will need to do more to reach across party lines.

In 2008, first-time voters crowded the polls to cast their ballots for Obama. While students across the country were enamored with his promise to bring change to America, The Daily Pennsylvanian’s endorsement was cautiously optimistic. Our predecessors made it clear that “Senator Obama is not our savior. He will not solve all our problems in his first hundred days. He will not restore the economy overnight.”

Indeed, Obama hasn’t fully revived the economy — but he has improved it substantially beneath the backdrop of the direst global recession the world has seen since the Great Depression. He has improved America’s perception throughout the world and negotiated foreign policy with tact. On the domestic front, he’s provided a clear plan for the economy with compelling solutions to tackle unemployment, though the national debt remains a large concern since it is our generation that will have to bear its burden.

Obama, admittedly, doesn’t have all the solutions. But his vision of the United States as a progressive society stands in stark contrast to Romney’s backwards vision.

We’re voting for Obama to be on the right side of history — to stand behind policies that respond to this country’s place in an increasingly globalized community.

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