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We do not support Barack Obama for President.
But on Nov. 4, Americans will need to choose McCain, the Republican, or Obama, the Democrat.
There are other candidates, including some who might even be better than these two incumbent senators. McCain and Obama are both flawed by their go-along attitudes that precipitated our current trillion-dollar housing/financial crisis. Both are also flat-out lying to the American people, by continuing to promise new spending that, in the wake of the financial meltdown, is unaffordable fiction.
But Americans cannot afford to throw away votes on unwinnable protests. The nation needs Presidential leadership - and Congressional statesmanship - as badly as it did in 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt misstepped here, overreached there, but led the United States out of the Great Depression.
Since American voters must make this choice between flawed candidates, we take a deep breath, utter a prayer, and offer ours: Barack Obama.
Obama is not aligned with the Republican executive branch members who have shredded the Constitution, prolonged and mismanaged the war in Iraq, failed abjectly to find Osama bin Laden despite a seven-year search, and presided over the collapse of the nation's housing and banking systems.
An Obama administration will get more incumbents out of executive branch positions than will a McCain administration. The Republicans blew it during the past eight years; they do not deserve re-election.
Obama is praised in some quarters as a compelling speaker - and derided in other quarters as not much more than a booming voice. But there is something to be said for Obama's calm, professorial approach and ability to inspire.
We think Obama's selection of Delaware Sen. Joe Biden was more presidential and less political than was McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is bright, articulate, energetic - and unqualified to fill the Presidency should the need arise.
On the issues we don't put a lot of credence in what either candidate is saying. As noted above, both men are bloviating hogwash six months out of date, pre-meltdown. They're trying to win a cross-country race with steam engines (hot air, to be precise) when we have already entered the internal combustion gasoline engine age.
Obama is vulnerable to pro-life views on abortion - but McCain is vulnerable to those same pro-life sentiments on Iraq.
Our next President will be forced into a reactive, defensive strategy during his first months in office. Obama's chances of working cooperatively with a likely Democratic-controlled Congress are better than are McCain's, especially given the legacy of bitterness between Congressional leaders and the departing Bush-Cheney administration.
Some among us worry about Obama's Socialist tendencies, non-mainstream associates, etc. We see those as concerns, not as crises. We put some faith in the Constitutional separation of powers that prevents Presidents from enacting policy changes without the concurrence of Congress and, in some cases, the Supreme Court.
And we reject the racist, ageist and sexist vitriol that has demarcated this campaign on the sidelines. Barack Obama and John McCain are good Americans. Those who say otherwise are dividing the country when it most needs unification.
As we said above, our choice of Obama is a selection, not an endorsement. It represents our considered opinion, nothing more.
But, as also noted above, newspapers don't vote. Americans do.
Make your endorsement known on Nov. 4 in the voting booth.
- Denny Bonavita, Nick Hoffman
