Chicago Tribune Endorses Romney

The United States is deeply in debt, and the "lethal pathology" of entitlement spending "threatens the career incomes of our children and grandchildren. They will spend their work lives as indentured servants to their elders." Which of the Republican candidates can fix that huge mess? Only Mitt Romney, with his boardroom experience, "has the personal skill set, the painfully won experience, to appreciate this peril and to guide Americans through their own financial rescue," says the Chicago Tribune. The newspaper gives Romney its endorsement ahead of Tuesday's big primary.

Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul "can only try to talk a good game," writes the Tribune. "Romney is the candidate best equipped to keep the US from devolving into New Europe." The Trib also thinks Romney has the best shot at returning the GOP to its "big tent" policy, including people with a diversity of backgrounds and ideas. But even with the endorsement, the newspaper has a big caveat about Romney—he hasn't offered any specifics about the "radical restructuring" government needs. In fact, Romney's budget proposals so far would add more debt over 10 years than President Obama's budgets, it says. (More Chicago Tribune stories.)