AN ENDORSEMENT: Sen. Barack Obama

As far as the positions of the presidential candidates on issues where they stand now, Sen. John McCain is the superior candidate for president.

But Sen. Barack Obama is the better choice for what this nation will become -- for the rest of this year and into 2009 and 2010.

For that reason, I am endorsing Sen. Obama for president.

I've reached this conclusion after the past two weeks and Gov. Sarah Palin's exhortation during the VP debates to look forward.

Unfortunately, I've been right in my blog posts about the future of the financial markets. And contentions by noted author Kevin Phillips are coming true -- this nation is going to pay dearly for 25 years of fiscal shenanigans from Congress to Wall Street to Main Street. Personal debt has risen in this nation from $1.1 trillion to $4.4 trillion. The party has to finally end.

Last Thursday, I took a tour of the most impoverished areas of Nashville. And the lack of progress there during this 25-year national party is shocking. Nashville public schools have failed children under No Child Left Behind standards. State tax collections are plummeting. Medicaid rolls in this state are being slashed for peple in need. The severity of the coming economic downturn will savage these people.

Across this nation, we will see things in our communities and on TV that we've only associated with Third World nations. Image-wise, it will be the Great Depression even if economic numbers don't reach that depth.

The New York Times' story about parents leaving entire families of children at Omama hospitals under the guise of protection for the abandonment of infants will happen in many more communities. Race relations will decline. Human relations as far as being our brothers and sisters' keepers will be affected.

That's why Obama will be needed. Like FDR, Obama must give his own fireside chats to keep hope alive in this nation. His speechmaking during the campaign has led more people to get involved in the political process than any time in modern history. His words now will be needed to get Americans involved in each other's lives in their communities.

Policy-wise, his tax cut program is much susperior to that of McCain in helping families making less than $250,000 a year. And Obama can turn the savings from ending the war in Iraq immediately to help American families at home on the brink. And they will be in staggering numbers.

People of means against Obama and his tax cuts that will raise their taxes miss an important point. If you have the money to pay more taxes, you are greatly blessed. You will avoid the coming calamity on Main Street. Government is of the people. It is accountable when the people hurt. It represents our values of being one nation under God.

The pain people of means will feel with paying more taxes is only momentary. And complaints about it are an affront to God. If you have your health, you have everything. God taught me that on my deathbed more than two years ago in Vanderbilt Medical Center. If I had died then of leukemia, there would have been no more taxes to pay, or profits to make. Anything we are able to do -- save money, buy groceries, wake each morning -- are from God's blessings. To deny that truth is to deny God.

Our next president also will have the advantage of possessing a vice president who could step into this shoes at any time. Sen. Joe Biden has the experience with people in need, or people just raising their families. He is most passionate toward them. And these Americans will need as many champions as possible with the economic catastrophe to come.

Sen. McCain has a running mate who is qualified to be vice president. But Gov. Palin is most obviously not qualified to be president.

My endorsement of Sen. Obama as president is not out of some sentimentality that an African-American should finally be president. I have been most critical of him on this blog because Democrats nationally know better. Democrats locally in Nashville do not.

I want the best candidate for the future, particularly that which neither candidate will publicly acknowledge for fear of stampeding the public. The best candidate was Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. But since she is not available for this moment of crisis and those to come, Obama is the next best choice for the White House.

Foreign policy and national security will continue to be big issues. But no terrorist could have caused the kind of pain and fear so many Americans are going to feel.

Sen. Obama is the only choice for president for a nation that will need someone to keep them hoping and push and enact public policy to rescue a nation and its citizens on the brink.