By almost every measure, we are not better off now than we were eight years ago. The American dream -- that you can work hard and do better in the future -- is more difficult than ever to achieve. We are divided and we are pessimistic. The time feels perilous, and Americans have lost faith that politics can bring us to a better place.

When the nation's financial system cratered during the last month, when venerable Wall Street companies went bankrupt, banks faced insolvency and retirement accounts lost almost half their value, those horrifying events were only the latest in almost a decade of calamities that have shaken America's sense of security and well-being.

In 2001, we experienced a deadly terrorist attack. Subsequently, we engaged in wars on two fronts that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars. At the same time, Congress enacted big tax cuts -- and the country went deeply into debt.

We've lost high-paying manufacturing jobs and yielded a good portion of our economic standing to distant countries whose economies have shifted into high gear. Health insurance costs keep rising, hurting employers and employees, or putting insurance out of the reach for others. Higher education is more expensive. Our national infrastructure -- the roads, bridges and highways we drive on every day -- is in desperate need of repair and replacement.

On a moral and strategic level, the last eight years, under the Bush administration's unilateralist foreign policy, have netted many enemies and lost many friends. The administration's endorsement of torture and abandonment of the foundational principle of habeas corpus have damaged our standing among nations. And our nation's security has been ill-served by a wrong-headed energy policy that has stressed a dangerous reliance on foreign oil.

While not all of the last decade's problems can be laid at the feet of President George W. Bush, he bears much responsibility for them. Bush's lack of wisdom and capacity has too often been matched by an equal lack of humility. And he has acted largely unchecked by a Congress consumed by its own petty partisanship.

We could be headed into a harsh wilderness and we need to change direction.

America is hungry for a person who can restore our faith and confidence -- in ourselves, in our politics, in our country.

We believe that Sen. Barack Obama is that person, and we endorse him for president.

AMERICA NEEDS A LEADER

In the beginning of this seemingly endless campaign, back when Obama and Sen. John McCain emerged as their parties' presumptive presidential nominees, we were not as certain as we are now that Obama should lead the country. While duly impressed, sometimes astonished, by his rhetorical ability, intellect and charisma, we believed then -- as we do now -- that his executive resumé was thin.

And in the beginning of this momentous presidential campaign, we believed that McCain was well-qualified to be president. As a war hero, an iconoclast unafraid to buck his party, a man of honor and experience, he was at the top of our list of Republican candidates suited for the presidency.

CONFIDENCE IN MCCAIN WANES

But as this campaign has ground on, as both candidates have been tested by each other as well as the relentless scrutiny of the media, pollsters, pundits and, not incidentally, actual voters, our estimation of both candidates has changed.

Obama has gained our confidence and McCain, sadly, has lost a significant measure of it.

First, to McCain. Had he remained the McCain so many of us knew and admired at the outset of the campaign, we might be writing a different endorsement. He, for example, correctly sized up the situation in Iraq and asked for the surge.

But once McCain won the nomination, he tried to expand his appeal beyond moderates and GOP conservatives to the party's right wing.

That meant abandoning his long-held, principled opposition to the Bush tax cuts, as well as his thoughtful and non-ideological proposal for immigration reform. It meant re-igniting this country's incendiary culture wars by casting himself as a lead player in the right-wing's favorite passion play, the battle between the long-suffering common man against overeducated, smug East Coast elitists.

McCain's desire for right-wing approval led to his most reckless and self-serving decision of the campaign: to choose the inexperienced governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, as his running mate. It was a decision that severely undermined the McCain campaign's claim to superiority in foreign affairs, as well as the public's confidence in McCain's judgment.

The campaign lurched from attack to attack, fixating on buzz words ("terrorist" and "voter fraud") that were unconvincing and beside the point at a time when people's nest eggs were tanking along with the Dow.

Over the months, McCain himself seemed transformed. His trademark ease was exchanged for bitter irascibility, mirroring the increasingly negative tone of his campaign. While we don't believe that presidents necessarily need to be nice guys with whom you'd like to share a beer, we do believe that acting gracefully and with equanimity under pressure is essential for a president.

OBAMA GROWS WITH CAMPAIGN

As McCain grew more angry and desperate, Obama grew more calm and measured. As the attacks mounted on Obama, on his family and his past, and as the temperature got hotter and hotter -- well, Obama just got cooler. The man has an almost freakish degree of equanimity and a consistent ability to step back and take the large view -- all of which are admirable qualities that would serve this nation well.

But that alone would not qualify him for the presidency.

As we have said, Obama is short on experience and electing him president entails risk. While he has run a huge, multibillion-dollar campaign and demonstrated strong executive skills in doing so, the decisions he has made during that campaign do not affect hundreds of millions of people and their security and well-being.

Yet we are moved to support him despite his relative inexperience, largely because we believe the strength of character he has exhibited during the campaign best suits him to lead our divided country into a new era.

While Obama's record in the Senate has been liberal and his positions solidly Democratic, he has not run an ideologically based campaign. Unlike the worst partisans of his party -- and some of his competitors for the Democratic nomination -- Obama has not sought to appeal to voters' anger and resentment, but to their desire to come together in common purpose.

At a time when partisan politics and its handmaiden the Culture Wars have fractured this nation, he has transcended the politics of blame and division and appealed to a politics of inclusion and, dare we say it, hope.

That is more than an issue of style. While a candidate can win the presidency with a majority of votes, he must govern an entire country. And for Americans to successfully tackle the enormous challenges ahead, we cannot waste time or energy on fighting each other.

Obama has shown a remarkably open intellect throughout the campaign, and a capacity to cut through hidebound thinking to the root cause of problems. His positions emerge after analysis across a broad historical context.

It is as if his multiple ethnicities, the many worlds in which he has lived and the social classes he has moved among, all have a home in his thought process. And it is that ability -- to reflect the vast range of the American experience in his very being and thinking -- that helps make him well-suited to be president.

CALL TO SACRIFICE

That said, Obama, like McCain, has been frustratingly short of specifics about the effect the national economic downturn would have on his ambitious plans.

The explanation, of course, is that you don't win campaigns by announcing in detail how you'll hurt or shortchange people. That comes later. And the broad and expansive New Deal-like programs that Obama has proposed would be limited by economic reality in the best of times; the recent economic upheavals mean that if elected, Obama will be required to pare them down into much more targeted -- and less ambitious -- measures.

However diminished Obama's goals might be upon assuming the presidency -- and there is much to chasten his ambition -- his ample dignity and steadiness have survived a bruising campaign in full measure. His eloquence has inspired millions to become engaged in politics for the first time.

That eloquence is not to be underestimated. It will be crucial to any success Obama might have as president. This country is in trouble. We have much work to do to repair the damage that has been wrought over eight long years. Such work will require sacrifice and pain in the service of the greater good.

It has been a long time since Americans have been inspired to national sacrifice. It has been a long time since we have been asked to do for our country and not for ourselves. It will take extraordinary powers of leadership to return this country to its promise. We believe Barack Obama has those powers and is the man to do it.