Four years ago, this newspaper's editorial board enthusiastically endorsed Barack Obama, then a young senator from Illinois, for president of the United States. As much as we admired the long and courageous service of his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, we believed that the nation needed fresh ideas and the fresh start that a leader with Obama's charisma and only-in-America backstory could provide.

Today, we recommend President Obama's re-election. He has led the nation back from the brink of depression. Ohio in particular has benefited from his bold decision to revive the domestic auto industry. Because of his determination to fulfill a decades-old dream of Democrats, 30 million more Americans will soon have health insurance. His Race to the Top initiative seeded many of the education reforms embodied in Cleveland's Transformation Plan. He ended the war in Iraq and refocused the battle to disrupt al-Qaida and its terrorist allies. He ordered the risky attack inside Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden.

And yet our endorsement this year comes with less enthusiasm or optimism.

Obama has changed -- and it's more than gray hair. The unifier of 2008 now engages in relentless attacks on his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The big dreamer of 2008 offers little in the way of a second-term agenda. There is a world-weariness unseen four years ago.

In fairness, the Obama of 2008 often warned his swooning audiences that change would be slow and painstaking. The four years since then surely have been far more trying than he or almost anyone could have imagined.

We wish President Obama had used this campaign to showcase a more substantial vision for the many challenges that still confront America. The nation needs to get more people back to work. It needs to get its financial house in order, reform its tax code and streamline -- though not gut -- regulation in order to reassure business and speed recovery. It needs to invest in infrastructure, education and job training. It needs to expand exports and engage the world.

Past presidential endorsements

Thomas Dewey, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton have each received multiple presidential endorsements from The Plain Dealer. Read

Not only do we still believe this president can do those things, we think he can do it with policies most likely to lift Ohio and Ohioans. Obama's leadership has made a difference when it mattered most. His stimulus package helped avert an even worse economic collapse and initiated investments in education, manufacturing and green energy that should yet pay dividends. His commitment to a balanced path toward deficit reduction won't please the most zealous members of either party, but it makes sense for the nation.

Much of what beset America during Obama's first term lay outside his direct control. The bobsled slide into recession was in full motion when he took office. The economic calamity has been global; recovery, sporadic and weak. Obama's attempts to reach across the aisle politically were met with unbending resistance, even belligerence.

And yet, Obama has often been his own worst enemy.

On stimulus and health care, in particular, he ceded too much freedom to doctrinaire Democrats on Capitol Hill and failed to engage the American people. When Republicans regained control of the House in 2010, he was slow to show that he had heard the angry cry from voters. Presented with a balanced plan to reduce the deficit by a bipartisan commission he appointed, he offered only a tepid embrace. He needlessly alienated business leaders whose buy-in the nation needs to restore prosperity.

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This litany of missed opportunities, as much as the grim economic statistics that have become America's unacceptable new normal, left us sorely tempted to endorse Gov. Romney this fall. Like President Obama, he is a man of public achievement and private honor. He was born to wealth and power, but used those advantages well: building a prosperous business; rescuing the 2002 Winter Olympics; being a leader in his church and serving as an effective governor. It is the track record of a man who gets things done. No wonder so many frustrated Americans appear eager to elect him.

But which Romney would they elect? The rather liberal one who ran for the Senate in 1994? The pragmatic governor? The sharply conservative candidate of this year's GOP primaries? The reborn moderate of recent weeks?

All politicians change positions over time -- Obama in 2008 shifted his position on health care reform more to the center. But Romney's frequent changes raise questions about his core principles and make his lack of policy details all the more troubling. They make you wonder if he would stand up to the more extreme elements in his own party, especially to the House Republicans who undercut Ohioan John Boehner's attempts to negotiate a deficit and debt deal.

Romney's tendency to bluster on foreign policy provides more cause for doubt. With tens of thousands of young Americans still in harm's way in Afghanistan, the United States cannot afford to be drawn into new wars without clear national interests at stake or to sap its resources in further open-ended conflicts. The Benghazi killings reveal the risks of an "Arab Spring" in which terrorists have gained new weaponry and new freedom to operate. But these challenges require inventive diplomacy and international engagement, not slogans or swagger.

Obama has shown that he favors engagement over bluster, and practical solutions over easy bromides. That's what the country needs.

Consider a defining moment early in Obama's first term -- one with special resonance in Ohio: The outgoing Bush administration had used TARP funds to throw a lifeline to General Motors and Chrysler, but the two automakers were still at death's door. They wanted more cash and offered vague promises to change their ways. Public opinion opposed another bailout. Romney urged the companies to file for traditional bankruptcy -- at a time when private-sector credit was frozen even for healthy firms.

Obama told the companies to restructure using the Bankruptcy Court and set conditions for government financing: GM's chairman had to go. Excess plants and dealerships had to close. Chrysler had to be bought out by Fiat. Contracts had to be renegotiated.

It was unpopular but gutsy. And it worked. Ohioans today are making cars in Lordstown and Toledo. They're making parts and steel for Ford, Honda and other automakers. They're back on the job.

That's leadership that deserves a chance to finish the job. Re-elect President Obama.