Besides the Colin Powell endorsement, Barack Obama got another important endorsement from the Chicago Tribune.

Now you might think that this was a given, since Obama is from Chicago, but the Trib hasn't endorsed a Democrat in my lifetime. I believe the article said that Obama is only the second Democrat they've ever endorsed. (Edit - They've never endorsed a Dem. They endorsed one candidate around the turn of the century who later was endorsed by the Dems, and they endorsed Teddy Roosevelt, who ran as a candidate for the Progressive Party.)

The reasons have to do with Obama's speech he gave in 2004 at the convention. "We're not Democrats, or Republicans, we are Americans" was the gist of the speech and the Trib believes we need this sort of unification, not the division offered by the Republican Party and John McCain, who has been more interested in painting Obama as a friend of terrorists (never mind that the terrorist is now a prof at Univ. of Chicago where Obama also taught law). They also decry his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, a move that reeks of political cynicism, a move that's popular with his base but not at all inclusive.

I don't have the text of the endorsement in front of me, and I don't have a link to it, but it shouldn't be hard to find if you look...