At this point in the election, it seems surreal to me that there could be anyone still undecided. This may be because my own knowledge of these candidates is formed from reading about their policies, their histories, reading their own writings, examing their records, and listening to their words. While occasionally listening to the various talking heads, I weight their bloviating somewhere at the bottom of the information scale. Consistency of word and action is the best indicator of integrity and truthfulness, the foundation of character. As we've seen in the past month, events sometimes move too quickly to govern strictly by a long term policy, so the judgement and, yes, character are extremely important in the chief executive of this nation. Again, judging by those standards, it seems obvious who the best, indeed, only responsible choice is: Barack Obama. Reading "The Audacity of Hope", examing his record in the Illinois state senate, and the U.S. Senate, and reading his policy proposals, one is hard pressed to find any inconsistancy. McCain, on the other hand, has a record of hardly anything BUT inconsistancy. To take one example, his refusal to call for the removal of the Confederate flag in South Carolina in the 2000 primaries, was obvious pandering to the base. His apology afterward, which some people point to as proof of his integrity, was a political shift back toward the center, and an attempt to maintain his "maverick" (god, I've come to hate that word) image. If he truly had any integrity in this case, he would have called for that racist symbol to be removed DURING the primary, or reversed his position while it still meant something.
So why does over 40% of the country still cling to the image of McCain as a straight shooter? Why do people still say they don't know Obama well enough? Who ya gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes?