The 2016 Blast The latest POLITICO scoops and coverage of the 2016 elections. Email Sign Up

Tweets from https://twitter.com/politico/lists/team-politico



AP Photo Chicago Tribune declines to endorse Clinton or Sanders

Neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders earned the Democratic endorsement of the Chicago Tribune, less than a week before Illinoisans head to the polls in the March 15 primary.

"This being a free country, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are welcome to pander however feverishly they wish, promising vast new expenditures by a federal government already committed to wildly more spending than its taxpayers and its low-growth economy can afford," the newspaper's editorial board wrote Wednesday, hitting Clinton in particular for scrambling "to mimic" Sanders on proposing costly programs unlikely to make it through Congress.

The Tribune endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on the Republican side, writing that regardless of his stances on individual issues, "he offers Illinois voters the framework of a presidency that realistically could exist."

"Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have not met this fundamental economic test," the board concluded. "We're keeping an open mind, hoping that whichever of them prevails will meet that test in the general election campaign. Because promises, pledges and policies mean nothing to a gravely indebted American government that can afford only to window-shop."

The paper's snub of Clinton is more pointed, in that it endorsed Sen. Barack Obama's Democratic primary bid against her as well as his presidential campaigns in both the 2008 and 2012 cycles. Clinton also grew up in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois.