It’s been a tough choice to make because I think both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would make potentially great presidents. I’m excited at the prospect of endorsing an historically significant candidate, the first woman or the first African-American to be the nominee of a major party. I think both have run excellent campaigns with very different styles, Clinton showing her toughness and determination to win and Obama emphasizing his cerebral, cool, non-confrontational style.

Both policy differences and character differences between the two candidates have been a factor in my decision, but neither pushed me decidedly towards one candidate or the other.

First, policy positions. I’m solidly behind their policy positions and agenda for America, though Hillary Clinton has a definite edge. On the issue I care most about, bringing universal health care to America, Clinton’s policy proposal is more comprehensive, more progressive, and more transformative than Obama’s. Moreover, she is the most likely to have the expertise and credibility to actually get the legislation passed. Obama’s proposal is weaker and he has never quite convinced me that he’s going to make healthcare reform his top priority.

Second, character. Clinton’s greatest weakness as a candidate is that she has absorbed much of the broken Washington political culture into her bloodstream. Consequently, she is too often dishonest, calculating, and wavering in her positions. Her affinity for changing positions with the changing polls is noted. And on the important national security issues America faces, Clinton faces the challenge that she is seemingly deathly afraid of being painted as “soft on terror” because she’s a woman. I worry that Clinton may be too eager to embrace war over diplomacy in order to shore up her credibility with voters worried that she isn’t tough enough.

In contrast, Obama is a refreshing political personality who seems authentic, inspirational, optimistic, and pragmatic. Obama seems more honest than most politicians, and more willing to say uncomfortable truths in front of unfriendly audiences. He panders a little less, and speaks candidly about his own weaknesses. Unfortunately, too many Obama supporters have gotten carried away with their enthusiasm and have built up a puffed up image of the man as a sort of messiah figure. I try not to hold it against Obama that many of his vocal supporters on the Internet are some of the most irritating pontificators I’ve ever encountered. Obama can’t help it, though I do wonder what it is about the guy that seems to attract so many naïve, sheepish, small-minded followers.

If casting a vote for president were merely a matter of weighing a person’s character strengths with their vision for the country (e.g., policy positions), then I would have to say my decision would come down to an even tie. I find Clinton’s character’s not so weak – and Obama’s policy positions not so misguided – that my choice is clear. However, there is one thing that breaks the tie: electability.

At this time, it seems very likely that the Republican party will nominate John McCain. Although Mitt Romney is not yet out of the picture entirely, I think it is prudent for Democratic voters still contemplating their choice to consider carefully which of our candidates is more likely to beat McCain in November. Consider two recent polls. A Rasmussen Jan. 26 polls show Clinton at 47% and McCain at 45% in a match; and it shows Obama at 46% and McCain at 41%. A NBC/WSJ Jan. 24 poll shows Obama and McCain tying at 42% and McCain beating Clinton 46% to 44%. Much could be said about how seriously such polls can be taken this early in a presidential contest. I choose to give them a fair amount of credibility, especially regarding McCain and Clinton, since these are two politicians who have a significant amount of name recognition. (True, I’m sure Obama’s negative scores will poll much higher as the fall election nears; however, McCain is also untested enough as a national figure that his negatives could easily be driven up as well.)

Obama is the better contrast to McCain: youth versus age, inspiration versus fear, hope versus bleak straight-talk, the future versus the past, etc. McCain on the campaign trail often sounds tired, hopeless, and resigned (”There will be more wars.”) McCain’s greatest weakness is his commitment to keeping the US in Iraq for up to the next 100 years. Democrats will be eager to paint him as a cranky, anger-prone, vindictive warmonger who can’t be trusted in the White House. Obama is the better candidate to sell that message, since his own longstanding opposition to the war in Iraq allows him to take the moral high ground.

Also, the McCain campaign will be eager to cast McCain as a bipartisan statesman who can work with a Democratically-controlled Congress to keep them in check. If he runs against Clinton, he will no doubt attempt to portray her as a partisan, polarizing, and divisive figure who will contribute to deadlock in Washington. That might very well be a successful sales pitch. However, McCain will be hard pressed to portray Obama as a divisive figure. Instead, McCain’s attack will center on Obama’s inexperience. My guess is that by November a plurality (if not a majority) of Americans will be won over to Obama’s side enough so that they are willing to gamble with a politician who is relatively green. (True, McCain will also attack Obama on ideological grounds. But my hunch is that it’s McCain who is more susceptible to ideology-based smears than Obama, who is truly striving for a post-ideological campaign.)

One strength of McCain’s is his “media darling” status. The media fawns over him incessantly, which makes it really tough going up against him because you’re fighting the media the whole way. Obama also gets lots of (undeservedly) positive media coverage, so picking Obama would cancel out that unfair advantage. It seems very unfair to Clinton that she consistently receives far more negative press coverage than the other candidates, but sadly her inability to curry favor with the media means she brings a huge liability to the fall campaign.

And so the choice of Obama over Clinton ultimately comes down to a practical choice of casting a strategic vote for the candidate who I feel would be the most likely to win a general election in a very competitive race. Obama is not a saint, nor a savior, nor the second coming of JFK and MLK all rolled into one. I find myself extremely irritated at the holier-than-thou histrionics displayed by his most fawning supporters. I’m really worried that many Obama fanatics seem to cry “race-baiting” at the slighest, most dubious provocation (no, I don’t think Clinton’s run a campaign based on race) – a tendency that could be disasterous for Democrats and bad for American politics in general. I’m not convinced that Obama will really bring all that many independents or Republicans into some sort of “Reagan-like revolution”; in fact, I think that’s all hype. I don’t find myself particularly excited by Obama’s principle theme, which he seems to have stolen right out of George W. Bush’s playbook (“I’m a uniter, not a divider”), and I still have plenty of worries about his slender experience, policy weaknesses, campaigning abilities, and electability (especially his susceptibility to religious and racial smears based on foreign-sounding, Muslim middle and last names). But nevertheless, he’s my call. If he’s the nominee, I’m sure I will be far more excited about voting for him in the fall than I am now (still feeling remorse that Clinton is not a more electable candidate than she has proven herself to be). And so I plan to caucus for Obama in the Washington State caucus on February 9, 2008 and vote for him in our primary as well.

If Hillary Clinton is the nominee instead, I will be far from upset. She’s another candidate with the potential to be a truly great president. And while she would face an uphill battle in a campaign against McCain, I’d still put my money on Clinton to win in a squeaker. My hope is that Clinton will select Obama as her vice-presidential running mate, and that he’ll accept. A Clinton-Obama ticket in ’08, however improbable as it may seem at this time, would be unbeatable.