I’ve been seeing a lot of presidential endorsements lately. In recent weeks, the endorsement mania has hit the editorial section of virtually every newspaper I pick up. I was reluctant to add mine to the pile. Most of the ones I’ve read failed to mention any doubts about their chosen candidate, or any of the reservations one has to overcome to pull the lever for anyone. They didn’t acknowledge the internal cost-benefit analysis that the decision entails. In their strident — sometimes bordering on shrill — advocacy of Barack Obama or John McCain, there seemed to be no recognition that every vote is a leap of faith.

Thankfully, It’s not a blind leap. Americans have had more than two years to review the records and rhetoric of our two presidential aspirants. We’ve seen how they respond — or fail to respond — to crises and how they withstand the pressures of 24-hour scrutiny. We’ve seen what aspects of their character remain constant, and which characteristics change when things get tough. Taking all this into consideration, I’m more inclined to place my faith in Sen. Obama.

My support for him is largely motivated by my distaste for his opponent. The reckless, erratic conduct of the McCain campaign is now part of political lore. Since August, when McCain began to trail Obama, I have seen his campaign flit from one desperate tactic to the next. One week they select an astoundingly unqualified runningmate for McCain. The next they misconstrue Obama’s use of the phrase “lipstick on a pig.” The next they exaggerate his brief association with a former ‘60s radical. Since these attacks have failed to stick, they have lately began labeling him a “socialist.”

McCain’s policy proposals have scarcely been more consistent. The immigration bill he initially sponsored was abandoned when the Republican base equated it with “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. The proposal to expand the Bush tax cuts has lately been pared back to a promise to merely maintain them. In recent months McCain has advocated a “spending freeze,” but since he suggested it, the list of exemptions he would make has grown so large as to render the term “spending freeze” meaningless.

I wish Obama had a longer legislative record by which I could judge him. I’ve seen only glimmers of his political promise. He demonstrated his good judgment in his opposition to the war in Iraq. His commitment to ethics reform in the U.S. Senate suggests that he truly was committed to changing the culture of Washington. His selection of Joe Biden as a running mate showed that he was thinking about the long-term decisions of governance, rather than trying to shore up his popularity with one or another reticent group of voters.

The principal task of the next president will be to undo the damage wrought by the last. Upon his inauguration, he will be responsible for the conduct of two costly unpopular wars, the rehabilitation of our country’s image abroad, rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast and reversing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. He will be expected to restore America’s good standing in the international community, keep our bloated entitlement programs from insolvency, and deal with the emerging threat of a nuclear Iran. I cannot know how effectively Obama will confront these challenges, but he’s given me sufficient reason to believe he’d handle them better than his opponent.

— Cristobal Matibag is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Ames