Listed here are major issues we hope voters will keep clearly in mind when considering candidates, not only for President and Vice President, but also for other executive, legislative, and judicial positions at all levels,  to which they may be relevant..

Leadership

• upholding and defending U.S. Constitution
• education and practical background
• working knowledge of history, sciences, geography, cultures, economics, statistics
• ability to consider opposing viewpoints fairly
• ability to think critically about complex issues
• ability to solve problems realistically
• ability to make fair and just decisions
• ability to bring together differing viewpoints
• honesty and openness (vs. deception and secrecy)
• limits on lobbying and no-bid contracting
• will and courage to oppose tyranny of the majority
• use of only legal and ethical means to advance political agenda
• competence (vs. partisan allegiance) as criterion for appointments
• willingness to prosecute outgoing administration for criminal behavior

Global

• United Nations
• energy and environment
• free / fair trade
• outsourcing
• compliance with international law
• space exploration / exploitation

Foreign

• diplomacy and war
• promoting human rights and democracy
• Middle East: Afghanistan & Iraq; Iran, Syria, Pakistan; Israel & Palestine
• rogue states / leaders: Iran, Myanmar, N.Korea, Cuba, Venezuela

Security

• borders and immigration
• homeland security, anti-terrorism, disaster response and prevention
• military: preparation and compensation; military draft; back-door draft
• national security: operation of NSA and CIA within the law
• proper gathering and use of intelligence

Social

• affirmative action
• consumer protection
• public safety and health
• education
• entitlements: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans
• national health care / insurance
• pharmaceutical imports
• abortion, stem-cell research
• farming out public welfare responsibilities to churches
• support of arts and culture
• values (whose?)

Justice

• erosion of constitutional rights
• judicial competence
• law enforcement
• Patriot Act: profiling, warrantless wiretaps, torture, indefinite detention without reasonable evidence of criminal activity or motives, etc.

Fiscal

• realistic assessment of economic ideologies
• deficit, spending, taxation
• balance of trade

Logical Non-Issues

• Candidate's wealth (or lack thereof)
• Candidate's race
• Candidate's sex
• Candidate's sexual preference
• Candidate's social, family, and love life
• Candidate's hobbies, hunting prowess
• Candidate's religious beliefs (unless he / she seeks to impose them upon society)
• Candidate's former neighbors, schoolmates, coworkers, preachers, teachers, bosses
• Candidate's attractiveness, charm, charisma, sex appeal, undergarments
• Candidate's favorite color / food / sport / team / movie / video game / music / celebrity / jewelry (lapel pins or otherwise)

Voters' Concerns

After seven years of governance by an administration that has seen fit to guide affairs of state and of the people by ideological belief, rather than by constitutional law and sober assessment of reality, American voters—liberals, moderates, and conservatives alike—are more than ready for something different.  However, the concerns of the voting public are sometimes not what the candidates assume them to be, and sometimes what the public demands of politicians doesn't even concern politics.  What seems to have the attention of voters in 2008?

Diplomacy and War

By now, a majority of Americans have confronted the unpleasant fact that the current war in Iraq was unjustified, poorly planned, and incompetently administered.  The motives to find and destroy non-existent weapons of mass destruction, to impose democracy on a people who prefer bloody tribal rivalries to thoughtful negotiation and compromise, to root out terrorist forces where there were none (but which imported themselves en masse once the regime that had kept them out was removed), to make the Middle East more stable and friendly to Western interests, have been shown to be unrealistic (and indeed were known by government intelligence—which the administration chose to ignore—to be unrealistic even before the invasion began).  The subsequent policy, of removing a succession of military strategists who dared tell administration ideologues things they didn't want to hear, has given rise to a new quagmire mirroring the Vietnam conflict 40 years earlier.  The U.S. is now stuck in a pointless, costly, deadly, and seemingly endless struggle, an ideological instigator now a not-so-innocent bystander, caught in the crossfire of self-perpetuating factional violence, its credibility utterly destroyed, the international good will and cooperation it enjoyed in the wake of 9/11 long since squandered.  Continued military presence in Iraq costs lives and saps our resources, while producing little or no improvement; but calamitous deterioration and escalating instability seem inevitable if we withdraw.

It's a really ugly situation, to which the only pretty solutions are imaginary.  Americans desperately want a nice, clean solution; but they're not about to get it, no matter whom they elect, from John McCain and his dogged stay-the-course vision, to Dennis Kucinich and his abandon-and-ignore-the-problem strategy.  The best we can hope for is an administration with the intelligence, vision, and integrity to find a way to draw down American forces in the region without creating a catastrophic power vacuum that could trigger the spread of violence throughout the region.  Only then can we hope to begin the long and difficult process of restoring the credibility and moral integrity of the United States in the eyes of the world.  For this we need leaders with high but realistic ideals, not foggy-brained ideologues who try to make up their own reality.

Economy

With several economic sectors either precarious or in decline, and with a serious recession thus being likely, attention naturally shifts to what government can do to ease the effects of a slowdown and promote recovery.
     One strategy that has often been tried is what Reaganites called "supply-side economics"—tax breaks for corporations and wealthy individuals.  The theory is that extra cash in the pockets of that sector eventually "trickles down," through investment and capital improvements, to the average working person.  But the theory has never actually worked.  Self-sustaining economic prosperity is driven by consumer demand, which prompts higher production, which increases profits and hiring, which increases consumer demand, and so on.  Trickle-down, in contrast, provides little more than a temporary boost to stock prices.  No matter how high a company's stock price soars, it simply isn't motivated to produce goods and services if there's no demand.  Increased investment doesn't stimulate prosperity; it merely simulates prosperity, by creating an illusion that must be fueled by continued infusions of debt.  While stock prices soar, real production, employment, personal income, and consumer demand actually drop.
     The solution has traditionally been to provide jobs or tax breaks to those who spend most of their income—the poor and the middle class, in order to bolster demand for products and services of American business.  But lately the picture has changed, since much of what Americans buy nowadays is foreign-made, and thus does not prompt domestic job growth.  Some new strategy is needed, such that incentives specifically target domestic production and employment.  So far, no one of either party has proposed such a strategy.

Energy and Environment

Now that escalating fuel prices are here to stay, and global warming has become evident to everyone save those in denial, people are more willing than ever to discuss doing something more about it than just fiddling with Daylight Saving Time for a couple of weeks a year.  Still, there are many who balk at the cost and effort of converting technology to alternate energy sources, and see it as a severe blow to the all-important petroleum industry.  But others look at the same data, and are inclined to see such a technology shift as a way to reduce energy dependence, and to create both new jobs and new wealth in the long run.  It's an opportunity for existing energy producers as much as for anyone else.  The question is, will the oil companies choose to take part, or will they continue obstructionist lobbying in an attempt to delay the inevitable?

Experience

Both McCain and Obama have experience as U.S. senators.  Neither has had executive experience.  Aside from the older McCain's longer service in the Senate, the greatest contrast between the two in their senatorial experience has been that McCain has allied himself with big business and deregulation, whereas Obama has concerned himself with the needs of the middle class and the disadvantaged.

John McCain has military experience as a combat pilot and prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict, and this is to his personal credit.  However, portrayal of this military experience, as somehow making McCain more qualified than Obama to be president, is a red herring.  Laudable though his military record might be, there has never been an instance in which a U.S. president has been obliged to pilot a military aircraft or endure brutal treatment in a POW camp.  Except perhaps for strategic planning (which McCain's service did not involve), military experience generally does not translate into experience advantageous in the Oval Office.  At most, a military record speaks to a candidate's personal suitability for service: a glowing record indicates devotion to duty; whereas a deficient military record indicates dereliction of duty.  Otherwise, it's irrelevant to one's qualifications for elective office.  Experience in combat is praiseworthy, but it does not endow anyone with superior qualifications to be chief executive, any more than to be a surgeon, an economist, or even a plumber's apprentice.

As a young man, Barack Obama turned down lucrative positions as a Wall Street lawyer to offer his services to urban jobless and disadvantaged; and he has also been an educator.  Although this experience itself is no more germane to the presidency than McCain's experience as a pilot and a prisoner, it demonstrates Obama's underlying concern for the well being of America's middle- and under-classes, and his willingness to forego personal income and influence in the interest of working for what he sees as a greater good.

Freedom versus Security

Many believe that curtailment of personal liberty is the only way to ensure security in a time of global terrorism.  But what has made America the land of the free, distinguishing government of, by, and for the people from all other nations at the time of its inception, and serving as a model to the rest of the world ever since, is its constitutional-representative-democratic form of government.  If an administration assumes the right to ignore the Constitution it is sworn to defend and protect, instructing its agents to spy on private citizens and to arrest and hold anyone indefinitely without just cause, and if other branches of government refuse to hold that administration accountable for its violations of the Constitution, then we must ask: What would distinguish such an America from the very authoritarian and theocratic forces it ostensibly opposes?

Health Care

The United States of America is the only major industrialized nation without a universal health-care system.  Nearly all the candidates have something to say on the subject.  However, the Democrats seem to be the ones putting forth detailed plans for universal health care insurance, and perhaps giving American consumers freer access to less expensive non-U.S. prescription drug suppliers, such as Canada.  Meanwhile, Republicans seem more worried about what they like to call "socialized medicine"—which seems to be conservative-speak for any serious government effort to curb corporate abuse of the public by the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.  It seems the GOP is for "free market competition" only with respect to outsourcing traditionally well paying jobs to Asia, not when it comes to consumers' interests.

Illegal Immigration

This issue is fraught with obfuscation.  It seems there are those who find the idea of illegal immigration appealing—illegal immigrants themselves, of course, but also unscrupulous employers eager to exploit them as a cheap, compliant, and expendable labor.  Obviously they'd have a hard time convincing voters that these are good reasons not to strengthen border security, so they resort to a dishonest smear, to depict those who oppose illegal immigration for economic and security reasons as if they opposed immigration in general for racist reasons.  Opponents of immigration restrictions allege that illegal immigrants are willing to do jobs that U.S. workers "refuse;" but it fact it's been shown that American workers are willing to do any honest work—provided they're offered fair wages and benefits, which the typical employer of illegals does not.  It's not a person's skin color or country of origin that riles American workers.  It's outsourcing in all its forms, including the wholesale illegal alien invasion of the U.S. job market, and the provision of citizen-taxpayer-funded government services to non-citizens, to which they most justifiably object.

Religion

Prying into public figures' personal affairs—from "boxers or briefs" to religious beliefs—has become a national pastime since 1980.  Some conservative Christians demand a candidate who will inject his personal religious beliefs and values into his appointments and public policy, with regard to abortion, stem-cell research, birth control, public education, scientific research, foreign policy, and numerous other issues.  But it's a case of "Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it."  They want religion injected into public policy only if the candidate's religion happens to coincide with their own.  If the candidate is something other than a Bible-Belt Protestant—a Mormon, a Catholic, a Jew, or even a liberal Protestant, for example—then the thought of injecting those religious values into affairs of state seems just as dangerous to them as—well—the injection of Bible-Belt Protestant values by President G. W. Bush must seem to anyone fed up with the demonstrably catastrophic results of just such a policy for the past seven years.