Chicago’s largest newspaper backing Rubio

The Chicago Tribune is throwing its support behind Marco Rubio in the Republican presidential primary race while declining to endorse a Democratic candidate.

{mosads}The influential Illinois newspaper endorsed the Florida senator’s bid days before the state’s March 15 primary.

The newspaper’s editors praised Rubio’s tax plan and foreign policy knowledge.

“We like his youth, his bilingual fluency and the fact that he isn’t one more Republican who’s been standing in line, awaiting his turn to run.”

The editorial channeled Mitt Romney’s criticism of Donald Trump, cast doubt on John Kasich’s ability to win across the country and knocked Ted Cruz, saying his “retinas cannot process shades of gray.”

“The same inability to compromise that has gridlocked Washington has left Cruz all but friendless in the U.S. Senate,” the editors wrote, also taking issue with “multiple ethical offenses of his staff during the primary campaign.”

The newspaper, which twice endorsed Barack Obama but has since changed ownership, also declined to endorse in the Democratic race.

“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 editorial reads.

“Given the distance from economic reality that Clinton and Sanders have catapulted in their exhortations, we cannot endorse either of them in the Illinois primary election.”