To recap: Last week, Iowa’s major state newspaper the Des Moines Register snagged an interview with President Obama to take into their consideration in preparation for their forthcoming presidential endorsement, on the condition that it be kept off the record. After the editors publicly wondered why such an interview should be kept from the public, Team Obama relented and belatedly allowed the interview to be published. On Thursday, the DMR’s front page gave something of a clue as to which way their endorsement would swing — which, we learned on Saturday, turned out to be quite accurate. (Take note: This is the first time the left-leaning DMR has endorsed a Republican for president in 40 years. Just sayin.’)

Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.

The former governor and business executive has a strong record of achievement in both the private and the public sectors. He was an accomplished governor in a liberal state. He founded and ran a successful business that turned around failing companies. He successfully managed the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. …

The president’s best efforts to resuscitate the stumbling economy have fallen short. Nothing indicates it would change with a second term in the White House.

Ya’ burnt. National Review points out that, on the heels of the DMR endorsement, Romney also won the endorsements of three other Iowa newspapers — and with Iowa still very much in the swing-state running, the papers’ endorsements certainly can’t hurt Romney’s cause.

Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, as you might readily imagine, took the dismissive tack on Sunday morning, via The Hill:

“They endorsed Mitt Romney in the primary, so this was not much of a surprise,” said Cutter on ABC’s “This Week” of the influential swing-state paper’s backing for President Obama’s challenger.

“It was a little surprising to read that editorial, because it didn’t seem to be based at all in reality, not just in the president’s record, but in Mitt Romney’s record,” Cutter added. “It says that he’d reach across the aisle, which he’d do the exact opposite. It’s the exact opposite of what he did in Massachusetts.” …

“Over the course of running for president over this last six years, he’s never once stood up to the far extreme right wing,” she said, citing the controversy over Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s recent comments on abortion and rape.  “Just this past week we saw it, when he wouldn’t take down his ad for Richard Mourdock, who had — you know, it’s a now famous comment that it’s God’s will if a woman gets pregnant through rape. He’s not willing to stand up when it matters.”

Huh. Criticizing the thought process of a paper that endorsed Obama in 2008 as out-of-touch with the big issues of the election, and then pivoting to the faux-“war on women” to do so. …Well, somebody certainly doesn’t seem to be based in reality.