Our View: Man and moment — Mitt Romney for President

America, from its very inception, has been a nation blessed — one reason being that, in times of profound crisis, it has benefited from inspired leadership, of man meeting moment.

Imagine, if you will, George Washington not stepping to the fore to serve as our first president, thus setting this nation on a correct constitutional course. Or Abraham Lincoln not guiding this country through a brutal civil war among brothers. Or Ronald Reagan not assuming the presidency as a Cold War turned increasingly chilly with America mired in a maw of “malaise.”

This nation now faces another crucible, largely of our own making — grinding debt, an economy in stasis, our fiscal future compromised by excessive borrowing, soaring liabilities, and increased dependence by many Americans on the not-so-tender mercies of statist government.

Over the past four years, a contrived experiment in “hope and change” has gone dreadfully awry, to the point this nation is in dire need of reversal — or, as they say in the corporate world, a “turnaround” — fiscally, morally, philosophically, and spiritually. It needs leadership, and we have a person in mind — a “turnaround expert,” in fact — to provide it.

Willard Mitt Romney is qualified for such a daunting task, and to be president of these United States. The breadth of his resume meshes neatly with the demands of the moment.

Click off his achievements — corporate executive, Olympic president and CEO, governor of a populous state, not to mention religious leader and family man — and the experience accumulated in each promises to stand him in good stead in the Oval Office . . . at a time when a fractious, dispirited, divided America yearns for a man of such accomplishment and talent.

Mr. Romney’s virtues? Let’s start with business sense. He knows his way around a spread sheet, right down to the bottom line. And he’s made a payroll or two in his day.

Even more importantly, Mr. Romney instinctively grasps the driving force of American economic exceptionalism — our commitment to capitalism (a word he’s not afraid to use) and freedom. That is, free enterprise and free markets.

As Mr. Romney said that June day in 2011 when he announced his candidacy, “In the campaign to come, the American ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear and unapologetic defense, and I intend to make it — because I have lived it.”

Yes, he has. Mr. Romney is a success story in a land that once unquestionably valued and praised success rather than demonized it. Not only does he, in speaking the language of freedom and opportunity, wish to restore that appreciation for well-earned success, but also wants everyone to “live it.” Or at least have the chance to.

For this reason, Mr. Romney’s campaign has focused incessantly on economic rejuvenation, through the time-honored channel of more jobs for more people. A nation, he believes, pays its bills when its people have the wherewithal, by dint of their own initiative, to pay theirs.

Therein, we maintain, lies the secret of Mitt Romney’s appeal — in a life story grounded in timeless verities.

Though Mr. Romney is, by nature, a conservative man, the themes he emphasizes on the stump and in debate are neither partisan nor particularly ideological — but quintessentially American: practicality, hard work, prudence, sobriety, restraint. And by so doing, at this most opportune time, he represents true hope and real change.

Time and again this campaign, Americans have expressed a desire to see gridlock in Washington end, and a collegial rather than partisan approach to national problem-solving implemented. Who better has exemplified all that this entails than Mr. Romney?

As head of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympiad, he displayed a keen ability not simply to get things done, but also to work with people in doing so. And, as the Republican governor of one of the nation’s “bluest” states, Massachusetts, he demonstrated similar traits.

America’s way out of the fiscal and economic wilderness in which it currently resides demands such a person — someone able to stand firm on principle yet find a way, at day’s end, to sell his plans and prescriptions to folks ideologically disposed, or even compelled, to disagree. Ronald Reagan was such a person. We believe Mitt Romney can be, too.

Finally, Mitt Romney exudes an innate decency born of principles sincerely held — foremost of which is an ingrained pride in America’s greatness, her value to the world.

This pride shone through in the first presidential debate when, asked about the role of government, he turned and pointed to the stage’s backdrop featuring excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. These documents, he stated, will be his guides.

And it radiated again earlier this week when, during a foreign-policy address at VMI, Mr. Romney sounded the clarion for America as a global leader rather than follower. The world is a far better place, he said, when America — particularly her military, which he seeks to reinvigorate — is strong. How true.

And our nation, we believe, will be a better place with Mitt Romney in the White House. Those who know him well speak of his sound judgment, his instinctive generosity, his patience, and his kindness, particularly to those in need.

Such virtues may not be deemed essential to the presidency, but they speak as commendation of a life well led, a life of service.

Mitt Romney is a proven commodity, a man exquisitely qualified and temperamentally suitable for the office he seeks, and for the challenges that lie ahead. He’s a man who’s met his moment — and so we, without hesitation or equivocation, endorse him for the presidency of the United States.