Sarah Palin's hometown paper endorses Barack Obama for president

The Anchorage Daily News, the most widely read newspaper in the home state of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, this weekend joined such Republican stalwarts as former Massachusetts governor William Weld, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former George W. Bush spokesman Scott McClellan in endorsing Democratic candidate Barack Obama for the presidency.

Noting that the northernmost state's founders "were optimistic people," the paper went on to note in its endorsement that Obama "displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand," witheringly concluding that "Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation." The paper also asserted that McCain's response to the financial crisis showed him "to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery."

But there was more. From the newspaper that probably knows her as well as any in the country, the editorial went on to say of Palin that "few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth...Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time."

Couple sentiments like this with the news in places like my thoroughly blue-collar but often conservative home county of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that the Democratic Committee announced last week that more than 22,000 Democratic voters were registered since last November — a 27 percent increase - one can feel a seismic shift and a moment of great - yes - change coming to American politics. It is a moment than many, both in the United States and beyond, throughout the long, dark night of the Bush years, have long been waiting for.