The Democrat brings a new hope to a country that badly needs it

In the century and a half that Oregon and The Oregonian have been making presidential choices, there has rarely been a time when the nation so desperately needed a sharp change in direction.

To provide that change, The Oregonian strongly urges voters to support Barack Obama.

Obama has the best chance, and the best abilities, to rebuild an American economy that has grown dangerously unstable, with government, consumers and the nation itself spiraling deeply into debt and selling off the national future to pay for daily expenses. He is the best choice to rebuild the American position in the world, to restore our ties with traditional allies, to re-make the American argument to the rest of the world.

Crucially, Barack Obama can recall the United States to its own highest principles and priorities. He can change course after an administration that has often cut constitutional and legal corners, and frequently stumbled into policy and philosophical embarassment.

Over his career, and over his candidacy, Obama has shown a powerful ability to reach people, especially the young, who have become indifferent or despairing about the American future. He has also conducted a long, massive, impressively orchestrated campaign that displayed his ability to remain poised, focused and organized under pressure.

That ability brought him from a longshot with a relatively slim resume to the Democratic nomination, and now the brink of the presidency.

Obama's historic role in this campaign -- the first African-American major party nominee for president -- may well strengthen his ability to make those connections. His identity and his attitude will clearly change the image that the United States presents to the rest of the world, at a time when that change is desperately needed.

The conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, of all people, recently concluded that Barack Obama had both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. The next president will badly need both.

By contrast, John McCain has had considerable difficulty finding a voice and a direction for his campaign. The Oregonian supported McCain for the Republican nomination, and has admired many of his positions over his career, including his opposition to torture, his commitment to a realistic immigration policy and his insistence on the reality of man-made global warming. We continue to admire his record, and his contributions to this country.

But in this campaign, the historic John McCain has often been hard to see. Some of his bolder independent positions have been dropped by the wayside in his pursuit of the Republican nomination, and McCain has shown little ability to adapt to new circumstances.

With little economic expertise or interest throughout his career, McCain has cast about for a response to the market meltdown, tossing out different approaches while showing little insight into the problem. He has been quick to cite the relatively minor issue of congressional earmarks, and has denounced "Wall Street greed," although in Congress he has urged ever deeper deregulation of the financial markets.

As McCain's prospects have declined, he has relied ever more on dark hints about Obama's connections, or suggestions that only one party was truly patriotic. This has been both distasteful and unlike the earlier John McCain.

Two particular issues, on presidential-level appointments, reinforce our endorsement.

In the first major choice made by any nominee, Obama showed considerably better judgment. His pick for running mate, Joe Biden, has an extensive background, especially in foreign policy, and the clear capacity to be a significant asset to an Obama administration, much as Al Gore was to Bill Clinton.

McCain's choice, in stunning contrast, has a background of a year and a half as governor of Alaska, and has claimed, with a straight face, that she has national security credentials because from Alaska you can see Russia. Supporting her, McCain has offered the equally jaw-dropping claim that Sarah Palin knows more about energy than anyone else in the United States.

Having Palin a heartbeat from the presidency makes our own heart miss a beat.

The next president will make crucial appointments to a sharply divided Supreme Court. This issue is generally raised in terms of the abortion issue, but it goes far deeper than that.

At a time when the Bush administration has repeatedly assaulted American traditions protecting privacy, banning torture and guaranteeing the right of habeas corpus, even a generally conservative Supreme Court has stood against his incursions. But the addition of more justices embracing a doctrine of an all-powerful executive could change American law and rights beyond recognition.

This has been a very long campaign, and since its beginning the favorites -- and the themes -- have changed repeatedly. Way back in the winter of 2007, the key issue seemed to be Iraq, a theme that has been steadily replaced by the economy, until this month's market meltdown seemed to blot out everything else.

But even more unnervingly, the time has also seen the American people's confidence in their system and their society erode rapidly, until the most recent CBS poll found only 7 percent thought the country was moving in the right direction, while 89 percent thought "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track."

It's a situation that requires not only a policy change, but a powerful call for Americans to remember the things that hold us together, and to believe in them again.

In Barack Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope," he explains what he means by that phrase: "the audacity to believe that despite all the evidence to the contrary that we could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict."

That audacity, and his ability to make others believe in it, is one of the strongest reasons to make Barack Obama the next president of the United States.