by Robert Griffith

Created on: October 18, 2008

Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain are both men of strong character, a fact often lost in the fog of warring campaign factions. The prevailing determinant for some Americans will not be basic character so much as blatant characterization, but neither is particularly relevant to my vote in 2008. In the case for character, both men are possessed of a personal history of strength in adversity, persistent effort, compassion for others, faith, and service. Character is a baseline virtue. Some have it and some don't, and most usually it is formed by adverse experience and an individual's response to it. When personal strength and courage are employed by a person in struggle or aspiration, I regard that person as a person of character.So in this instance character becomes a non-issue.

Personality, on the other hand, does enter into my choice for President because it offers a window into the style of leadership our next President will offer to us all. Personality is a nuanced manifestation of character, and in different people it manifests in different ways. There's no doubt in my mind that America is in dire need of a particular type of leadership personality. While our substantive economic issues and foreign policies are foremost in the minds of many these days, I think America has deep systemic afflictions which could begin to be healed by the presence of an even-handed, fair-minded, consensus-building, deliberative and insightful Presidential personality.

Not many people would disagree with the observation that in 2008 a large number of Americans are divided, angry and fearful. We have become separated from one another into unyielding militant factions in 21st-century culture wars. At times our feelings are expressed in rhetoric approaching hate, and our discontent is fueled by a vague sense of apprehension, an ongoing feeling of impending doom.

I think leadership - true leadership - can moderate these conditions. Since September 11, 2001, America has been helmed by an administration which, perhaps inadvertently and merely from a lack of positive leadership qualities, has manged to inculcate division, fear and anger into the contemporary American socio-political psyche.

President George W. Bush's tough-talking, go-it-alone cowboy persona has proven more argumentative and insistent than substantive and corroborated, more inflammatory than conciliatory, and typically personal and unilateral rather than national and broadly inclusive. I honestly believe that

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