This year’s Presidential election is more important than most because never in our nation’s history has our government strayed as far from our fundamental American values as it has in the eight-year reign of George W. Bush and his Machiavellian Vice-President, Dick Cheney.

From President Bill Clinton they inherited a federal government that was at peace and held in high esteem by its friends around the world. They inherited a government that was serious about the environment, energy, and education. They inherited a government in which the economy thrived.

Piece by piece, they tore it down until, at the end, we have the most incredible mess any new administration has inherited since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was mercifully elected to replace the bumbling Herbert Hoover in 1932.

It was bad enough that through their propaganda ministers on right-wing radio, the Bush-Cheney gang got away with vilifying those who opposed them. They cynically wrapped themselves in the flag and their religion. In the most shameful display of demagoguery since the McCarthy era, they even perverted the language, redefining “Democrats” and “liberals” as being synonymous with “unpatriotic” and “anti-religious.”

Even worse, however, they betrayed the traditional conservative core beliefs of the Republican Party. From the days of Lincoln, Republicans have opposed big government, espoused fiscal responsibility, been wary of foreign entanglements, and supported every citizen’s constitutional rights.

But the Bush-Cheney gang – the ultimate “Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” – abandoned those principles in favor of what the respected conservative pundit George Will calls “faux conservatism.” They grew the government, plunged the nation so deep in debt we may never dig out, invaded a sovereign nation that had not attacked us, flouted the rules of the Geneva Convention, and systematically tried to deprive Americans of our civil rights.

Whatever the Republican Party has become on the Bush-Cheney watch, it is not the G.O.P. of  Dwight D. Eisenhower, Everett Dirksen, John Sherman Cooper, Barry Goldwater, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan.

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John McCain, the Republican nominee, knows this, but can acknowledge it in only a limited way. He has tried to distance himself from the Bush-Cheney gang while maintaining the support of their diehard followers, also cryptically known as “The Base.”

It has been a juggling act beyond McCain’s limited capability. For all his doubletalk about change, he has not pulled it off. The record is clear.He has voted with Bush almost every time and even bragged about it. He has said America should stay in Iraq 100 years, if that’s what it takes to win.

Of course, victory is impossible in Iraq, unless we engage in the doublespeak of Orwell’s “1984,” in which “War Is Peace!” and “Ignorance Is Strength!” It is, in fact, obscene to speak of victory when we already have lost more than 4,000 American lives, untold billions of dollars, and our hard-earned position as the world’s conscience.

But there’s hope. Thank God Almighty, there’s hope.

Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, is a charismatic leader in the tradition of FDR, John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Bill Clinton, and, yes, Ronald Reagan. Even his most bitter opponents acknowledge, however grudgingly, his eloquence as a speaker. Of course, they also are quick to contend that he’s far more style than substance, one of the nicer things they’ve said about him during a campaign that has been ugly and dishonest even by Karl Rove’s standards.

The truth is, Obama could be the poster child for the Republican belief  that minorities should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. He has done that. When you examine Obama’s roots and his career path, he never enjoyed any of the advantages that belonged to McCain, the son and grandson of Navy admirals.

Obama also could the poster child for the Republican definition of family values. By all accounts, he’s a wonderful husband and father, a dedicated breadwinner, and a spiritual man who practices what he preaches. He also practices a healthy lifestyle, except for the cigarettes he sneaks.

Unable to find any dirt on him, and unwilling to stick to the issues, the neo-cons have employed various diversionary tactics, most notably the old guilt-by-association trick. They have spent an incredible amount of time, money, and energy talking about Obama’s past associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers than about any of the critical issues confronting the nation.

Instead of promoting McCain in a positive way, his campaign handlers have opted for a negative strategy of attacking Obama. They have tried to play upon many Americans’ fear of the unknown by harping on what they perceive to be Obama’s lack of experience. They haven’t overtly played the race card; but they have tacitly wooed the rednecks who do not, under any circumstances, want an African-American to be President.

They have painted him as a “socialist” because he wants to find a way for all Americans to have quality health care and because he wants to change the tax structure in a way that will help young people just getting out of college and trying to start their own businesses. That was the message to “Joe the Plumber” that the McCain campaign distorted.

Perhaps most amazingly, they have drug out the old anti-intellectual stratagem that Eisenhower’s handlers used to defeat Adlai Stevenson twice in the 1950s. Like Obama, Stevenson was from Illinois. Also like Obama, he was an educated man of towering intellect. So the Republicans appealed to the Joe Sixpacks of that day by portraying him as an elitist “egghead” who was out of touch with the common man.

Through all this, remarkably, Obama has maintained his cool. His focus has never strayed from the issues. He has stayed on the high road, refusing to get down in the gutter. He has demonstrated, repeatedly, that he when it comes to race and religion, he believes in diversity, inclusion, and tolerance instead of just paying lip service to it.

Given the choice between talent or experience, almost any sports coach or manager will take talent every time. In Obama’s case, his talent is obvious and his potential unlimited. Although he’s almost three decades younger than McCain, he already has demonstrated that his judgment is far more reliable.

Consider, if you will, the judgment the candidates exercised when selecting their runningmates. Obama picked Joe Biden, a distinguished and respected veteran member of the U.S. Senate with special expertise in foreign policy. McCain picked Tina Fey – no, sorry, Sarah Palin. Both are comedians. It’s impossible to tell them apart, as McCain himself drove home by appearing with Fey-as-Palin on the most recent “Saturday Night Live.”

The more Palin has appeared in public, the more responsible Republicans – the spiritual descendants of Dirksen, Ford, et al – have become horrified by McCain’s hasty and irresponsible choice. Her vision of America coincides nicely with the Bush-Cheney crowd — you know, the charlatans and frauds from which we all agree that we need change.

Obama deserves your vote not just because he would be our first African-American President, although that, in itself, is not a bad reason to vote for him. He deserves your vote not just because he’s an eloquent and passionate speaker, although, heaven knows, it’s about time we had a leader who can inspire, uplift, and encourage us to seek the better angels of our nature.

He deserves your vote simply because he’s an exceptional human being who has something in common with just about every American, regardless of race, religion, or socio-economic status. He deserves your vote because he radiates intelligence, compassion, and common sense.

Finally, he deserves your vote because he has the vision and the will necessary to revive America’s pride in itself and restore us to our accustomed place as the moral leader in the community of nations.

More than any candidate we’ve seen since John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama is the right man with the right stuff at the right place at the right time. We can only devoutly hope that America gives him the opportunity to give us back our nation.