I am tremendously underwelmed by the choices. In the end I will probably vote for Obama because:
1. Try as I might to be open minded I just cannot bring myself to vote republican in a presidential election. I have voted for republican candidates in other election on a local level when it was a case of who was best for the job. Party affiliation was not even disclosed but I knew they were republicans.
John McCain is more desirable as a republican candidate than the also rans, esp. Huckabee, or the others they have put forth in the past.
2. I like the idea that a man of color could be elcted president in this country, I am almost fearful of the day the race card gets played, and it will. Somewhere, someone, maybe even me (like I'm that important), will say the wrong thing without thinking and it could turn very nasty.
I think in the U.S. we still have not gotten past the idea of a monarch, and we want one individual in the oval office to represent something like that. So much is invested in it, and change only proceeds at the pace of a glacier.