Senator McCain, on the other hand, is thoroughly middle of the road. He works well with his colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the Senate. In fact, McCain has the integrity to do what he thinks is right regardless of which extremists he pisses off.

McCain co-authored the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 with Democrat Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. This law regulates political campaign financing, limiting the use of soft money and so-called "issue ads" which pretend to be mere information but are actually thinly disguised political ads. This bill infuriated special interest groups from both sides of the political spectrum: gun nuts to tree huggers.

McCain served in the House of Representatives from 1982 to 1986, then was elected to the Senate. In both Houses, he worked on lowering taxes and eliminating waste. After September 11th, McCain and then-Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman wrote the legislation that created the 9/11 Commission.

In 2005, McCain introduced the McCain Detainee Amendment, which prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, by confining military interrogations to the techniques allowed by the U.S. Army Field Manual on Interrogation.

McCain is far more likely to appoint Supreme Court justices who will respect and uphold the Constitution rather than justices who will gut it. (Kelo vs. New London, which allows the government to use eminent domain power to take someone's private property for someone else's private use, was affirmed by the five most liberal justices; the four most conservative dissented.)

McCain tried to prevent our nation's current financial crisis when he co-sponsored the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190. He warned, "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole." The attempt was killed by Democrats in congress, including Barack Obama.

Obama thinks we should spend more money on early childhood education and government-run health care.

The most compelling reason to vote for McCain is that we are at war. We have enemies - North Korea, Iran, Al Qaeda - whose clearly stated intention is to destroy us. Russia has invaded Georgia. Iran is building nuclear technology and satellite technology. Obama's experience is limited to Chicago machine politics.

McCain is third generation American naval officer: duty, honor, country. As a navy aviator, he requested a combat assignment. He was flying his 23rd bombing mission when his Skyhawk was shot down over Hanoi. McCain broke both arms and a leg, and parachuted into a lake. Some North Vietnamese dragged him out, others broke his shoulder with a rifle butt and bayoneted him before transporting him to the infamous prison, the Hanoi Hilton.

Rather than providing him with medical care, they beat and interrogated him. The rest of McCain's bio can be read online at Wikipedia. I tell this much to illustrate why McCain understands quite clearly what terrorists are capable of, and why he is not intimidated by Republicans, Democrats, or the media.

Obama is a mystery. He has had an astonishingly brief public life. There are huge gaps and questions about his past. He has an extremely leftist voting record, and that is all we really know of him.

Obama was catapulted to fame by the mainstream media, who have increasingly allowed partisan politics to shape their choice and presentation of news stories. As a result, otherwise well-intentioned people like Lisa Pampuch and myself can be totally opposed to each other's political decisions. It is an information gap. She bases her decisions on the biased mainstream media reporting. I base mine on the biased alternative media. There is no neutral ground.

John McCain has always put his country first, even to proposing a postponement of the presidential debate to tend to his duties in the Senate during the bailout.

He has a track record of working well with Democrats, of bridging the gap that threatens to tear this country apart. Obama is extremist, McCain middle of the road. And that is sufficient reason to vote for McCain.

Cynthia Walker Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch every Friday.