Are you a character-based voter or an issue-based voter?

It's interesting how people vote. The media focuses mostly on outstanding problems facing America and the solutions that presidential candidates offer to solve our most pressing issues — health care reform, the war in Iraq, education and so forth. Political pundits often assume that most voters will ultimately cast their ballots for the candidate whose beliefs most closely mirror their own, and for many voters this is true. But not for everyone.

Those who are concerned solely with issues can easily find a suitable candidate using a voting calculator. Answer a number of questions online and you'll be paired with the appropriate candidate who matches your beliefs. Here are two that come to mind:
http://selectsmart.com/president/2008.html
http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html

The problem that most of us realize, however, is that a politician’s platform has no real bearing on that person’s effectiveness. A candidate only has four years to implement ideas, and with the bureaucracy in Washington, it's difficult to effect change no matter how good the ideas are. So many Americans have come to believe that there will be no meaningful change in government, and our expectations have become so low that we just hope the president doesn't create additional fires during his or her time in office.

This is a pessimistic outlook, but is the prism through which many people view politics, which causes potential voters to avoid the democratic process all together.

With that in mind, should we put so much weight on the issues? We don't believe so. We believe that character, integrity and an honest evaluation of someone's thought process are what matter the most. It's this commitment to authenticity that would be best disseminated through government because it's the one that's most lacking.

If we could make a paradigm shift in what we value, from issues-based voting to character-based voting, a rapid change would occur in which more appropriate solutions would be implemented. In our assessment of the many presidential candidates, we see these traits best epitomized in Barack Obama, and we’re confident that his approach can spread throughout Washington, D.C. That's why he's such an important figure.

Questions to evaluate in a leader and problem-solver:

• As a leader, how effective is this person in working with others and motivating other people to make things happen?

• Is the person a dictator (only accounting for one solution) or is his or her thought process comprehensive (accounting for several solutions, weighing the options and choosing the best solution for the organization as a whole)? Our nation was founded on tolerance. With that in mind, wouldn't it be best to find a leader who finds a solution that takes all into consideration?

This is just a small group of questions we should be asking ourselves.

The process of evaluating character and the process through which someone solves a problem is the foundation of the hiring process in the most premiere business organizations, such as Microsoft, Google and other Fortune 500 companies. So why shouldn't we use this same criteria when evaluating a president?

If you want judge for yourself how Obama works through a process of arriving to a solution for the issues facing America, buy his book "The Audacity of Hope" or listen to the podcast here:
Obama: The Audacity of Hope Part 1
Obama: The Audacity of Hope Part 2
Obama: The Audacity of Hope Part 3
Obama: The Audacity of Hope Part 4
Obama: The Audacity of Hope Part 5
Obama: The Audacity of Hope Part 6

If you want glimpses into Obama's character, listen to some of his Influences Speeches posted below.

If you were to apply this exercise of evaluating character, integrity and analytical skills to the remaining candidates, we’re sure you would come to the conclusion that Barack Obama excels far beyond that of any of the other candidates and is urgently what this country needs!