Whether it's NAFTA, the war in Iraq, abortion or gun control, Clinton's positions change with the wind. With Obama, you may not agree with him, but you know where he stands.
While he finds mountaintop removal mining troubling, he told environmentalists in West Virginia that for the near future, the country is going to have to produce more coal.
He's against suspending the gas tax because he voted for that at the state level in Illinois, and it didn't work. It deprived the state of money needed to maintain roads and made no difference to the consumer.
He has consistently said the war in Iraq was a "dumb" war, but he's no pacifist. He has taken a hard line against Iran's nuclear ambitions and has said that under the right circumstances, he would go after Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
On the other side of the ticket, no Republican candidate in recent years has been as popular among college students, independents and Democrats as McCain.
Although he is a genuine conservative - consistently pro-life, strong on national defense and a hawk on spending - McCain is also a maverick who takes positions contrary to the GOP party line on some issues, such as global warming, immigration and campaign finance reform.
Like Obama, McCain doesn't just tell people what they want to hear, but what he thinks they need to know. As journalists, we can identify with that.
If Americans are despairing of insincerity in politics, they're also tired of bitter partisanship. They want Democrats and Republicans to work together and reach compromises, to get things done. That's something else McCain and Obama have in common. Both have shown that they can reach across the aisle to respectfully work with people who are their ideological opposites - Obama with Jim Bunning and McCain, for example, and McCain with Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold.
Unlike Obama, McCain has no serious opposition in his party's primary. Ron Paul, a radical libertarian, is nuttier than trail mix - the candidate of conspiracy theorists and "patriot militias." We hate to disappoint his followers, but "the revolution" isn't upon us.
Neither McCain nor Obama is perfect. We wish McCain were younger and not so ill-tempered; and that Obama had more experience, especially in foreign policy. But both of these men are intelligent, independent and honest - and represent change from the status quo.
We encourage Republicans to choose McCain in their party's primary next Tuesday and Democrats to vote for Obama.
