The Official BigFlax.com Presidential Endorsement

I know that a number of you have been waiting patiently to see which candidate this blog would endorse for President in the upcoming election. So here's your answer: Barack Obama.

I usually try not to be too political here, mostly because people get bored by that kind of stuff rather easily, and also because if you agree with me you don't need much preaching to, and if you don't you're probably not interested in my opinion. But I think we can all agree that after eight long years - emphasis on the long - it's time for a change.

John McCain might have been that change once. I know that some people who remember his 2000 campaign and his early opposition to the Bush tax cuts still think of him fondly as a maverick. But look at his record since then. He has drifted to the right on many issues, including now suddenly taking a hard line stance on abortion, his suggestion that he would extend the Bush tax cuts, and his selection of a far-right evangelical Christian with no national political experience as his running mate. 2000 John McCain wouldn't have won the Republican primaries, but 2008 John McCain can't win the general election. He's moved too far right at a time when that's clearly not what this country needs.

Even if you believe that McCain has only behaved this way to get elected, why should that be encouraging? Do you want a president who's willing to compromise everything he believes in just to win the office? Furthermore, his decision-making during the campaign has been severely questionable, and even if he were to turn back into Maverick McCain the second he was sworn in, it's unlikely that he would suddenly surround himself with better, smarter advisors, and Sarah Palin would still be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and I speak with no hesitation when I say that I find her the most unpleasant, least intelligent person to grace a presidential ticket in my lifetime.

By contrast, consider the case for Obama. While his enemies on the right charge that he is inexperienced, he has fashioned from nothing - with the help of talented advisors - possibly the greatest electoral machine this country has ever seen, one that swallowed up not one but two candidates who were sure the presidency was theirs for the taking. For all of Sarah Palin's posturing regarding executive experience, the mobilization of the Obama juggernaut is far more impressive to me than two years in charge of parceling out oil revenues. Throughout the entire campaign Obama has remained level-headed while McCain and Palin have increasingly frothed at the mouth; while he has misstated McCain's record at times to score points with supporters, he certainly has done nothing that has risen anywhere near the level of the far more personal attacks the right has leveled at him (and in fact many of his misstatements of McCain's record have later been corrected, suggesting that they may be misunderstandings rather than deliberate attempts to deceive in at least some cases). The right has run one of the dirtiest campaigns in history against Obama - and coming on the heels of two GEs with Karl Rove in charge of the GOP's sleaze machine, that's saying something - and Obama has not just weathered the storm but largely risen above it.

Obama's promises may seem to some like pie-in-the-sky, but most campaigns are like that. With a Congress that will be controlled by the Democrats (who still have a slim chance at a supermajority in the Senate), Obama certainly has a much better chance to enact his policies than a President McCain would. In that scenario, the only reason to vote for McCain is if you prefer inaction, but given the support Obama has been getting, it appears that much of the country prefers his plans to reverse the recession, fix health care, and deal with education, among others. Certainly I do - at the very least, considering how Republican policies have failed to do these things over the past eight years, what could be wrong with letting the Democrats have a turn? If they mess up, I'm sure people will be lining up to vote them out in 2012, if not sooner.

Finally, an Obama presidency ensures a Supreme Court that continues to have balance. A Republican president - even one with McCain's supposed moderate streak - is likely to nominate more conservative judges to fill the inevitable vacancies, and while the Senate will be in position to block any Robert Borks or Harriet Mierses after tomorrow, they'll have a tough time holding out forever. A Republican president means the Court is lost to the conservatives for a generation, legitimately putting Roe v. Wade at stake (while this is a decision that should probably have been left to state courts in the first place, it's become too important as a national issue to allow the decision to fall by the wayside).

Many of you have probably already voted, but for anyone left, I urge you to vote Barack Obama tomorrow. A vote for Obama is a vote against the fearmongering and divisive politics of the right, and a vote for a legitimate chance to save the country's reputation at home and abroad. If the future of the country genuinely means more to you than scare tactics and race-baiting, there's only one choice to make.