I want to propose another reason for voting for Obama, though, appropriate to this venue: he's a man of the book. Hence today's link madness...

First, of course, he wrote a book, then another, that have been on the bestseller lists for many months, making him a friend to bookstores everywhere. I'll admit I've only read bits and pieces, but I've heard his speeches, and the man can write.
As the New Yorker recently pointed out, some Republicans have chosen Obama's skill with words as something to criticize -- equating eloquence and articulation with the opposite of action. Obviously this makes no sense -- some of our best and most decisive presidents have also been the most eloquent (Gettysburg Address? "Nothing to fear but fear itself?" Anyone?)

And then there's the bit about Sarah Palin maybe, kinda, asking/suggesting the idea of censoring books in the Wasilla, Alaska library. The NY Times has the extent of what's provable in all that, which is not much. But some librarians took it pretty seriously.
More recently, the San Francisco Chronicle looked at the books the candidates have said are their favorites, and asked local authors to opine on what those choices mean. Obama chose Melville's Moby-Dick, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, and Emerson's Self Reliance; McCain's choices here are For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. My favorite comment is from Daniel Handler, who's also one of my favorite authors:
All of us polish those lists for public view, and you can't get more public than running for president. But these lists do tell us something, even if it's not the truth.Obama's list says that he'd like to convey a willingness to face heartbreak and irony, that he's open to the new and to the experimental, but that he's serious of purpose and true of heart.
McCain's list says that sure, he reads books, but he's not a pansy boy.

The few veterans of that fight still alive remain unapologetically to the left; Mr. McCain won’t find many votes among them. “He’s the very antithesis of what we stood for,” said Mark Billings, a mechanic during the Spanish Civil War who now lives in El Cerrito, Calif. (He says he is only guardedly optimistic about Mr. Obama.)
There's lots more, of course: Laura Miller in Salon has a long piece analyzing Obama through his reading, and his influences range far and wide. To me, the point of that article, and the point of Obama as a book person, is what much serious reading does to one's perspective. Obama values clarity, but he also admits and respects nuance, and even ambiguity. He puts great stock in empathy: imagining yourself in the other person's shoes, which is what good fiction allows. And he's absorbed philosophers of an idealistic pragmatism: you have to give good to get good back.
Anyway, my own articulateness is at an ebb this morning, but I hope you get the point. I'm off to put my words into action and do a couple of hours at the Brooklyn phone bank.
UPDATE: One last addition: I just discovered Jon Meacham's essay in the Times about what we can learn about the presidents (and candidates) from their reading, which discusses Hemingway and the tragic/hopeful sensibility, among other things. Fascinating stuff.