Publisher Mort Zuckerman said Monday he decided to endorse Republican Mitt Romney through the New York Daily News because President Barack Obama's policies have failed to stimulate the economy.
The endorsement Monday by the News, which Zuckerman owns along with U.S. News and World Report, marked a stark reversal of its endorsement of Obama in 2008.
"We weren't trying to shock the world," Zuckerman said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" of the reversal.
"We thought we would make a statement about what we thought was important in this election."
Zuckerman said the newspaper endorsed Obama four years ago because at the time "he was an extraordinary figure in American history and in political life, and deserved support."
Asked what changed, Zuckerman said, "I had enough of an exposure to him and to his administration, and to their policies, to feel they weren't working, and they weren't listening."
"All their economic policies didn't work," he added. "We have the worst economy today that we've had since the Great Depression."
Zuckerman acknowledged that some of nation's economic problems are a "hangover" from the presidency of George W. Bush. "But some of it," he said, "is because we had policies [under Obama] that were misguided and misappropriated."
He cited the economic stimulus as a primary example, noting that it failed to have "the multiplier effect" one would normally expect from a stimulus program.
"It was a one-for-one return instead of two-for-one," he said.
Asked why he thought Romney would do a better job, Zuckerman said, "I think he's got a very good record in this area and he understands it."
"What I found [with the Obama administration] is there was very little understanding of how business works and the economy works."
Zuckerman said he was also concerned that "50 percent" of the new jobs created over the past four years are mostly "part-time" positions. He said the economy is "much weaker than it looks" because the unemployment rate "is really 15 to 16 percent."
"These are things that really count to me," he said.
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