2012: Barack Obama

( Getty Images/Mark Wilson / November 5, 2012 )

Although The Sun noted with some disappointment that President Obama had not moved Washington past the political stalemate between Republicans and Democrats -- if anything, the problem got worse during his term -- it supported him based on the strength of his accomplishments: a return to economic stability after the disastrous end of the Bush years, the ending of the war in Iraq, the killing of Osama bin Laden, the passage of national health care reform and new regulations on Wall Street. The endorsement noted that his challenger, Mitt Romney, had seemed on every side of the issues at one point or another but that his campaign pledges on taxes and the deficit promised economic and fiscal disaster.