The Seattle Times endorses Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president. He has the grasp, temperament and skills to right our standing in the world. He has broad insight and specific ideas to assuage our own hardworking citizens' fears of an economy turning sour.

Obama has thoughtful plans to help citizens with everyday problems: middle-class tax breaks; elimination of income tax for seniors earning less than $50,000; health care for minors.

Critics ask a fair question about Obama's experience. He has been a U. S. senator for three years, Illinois state senator for eight, lawyer, lecturer, community organizer — a résumé some say is not executive enough for a president.

American voters tend to select governors rather than senators for president, President Bush being a recent example. Bush fit the mold — governor of Texas six years — but his résumé proved to be a failed indicator.

Judgment is more important. Bush's decision to invade Iraq was the most-wrongheaded decision of our time.

Voters this time have reason to focus on other qualities, such as the courage to tell people things they might not want to hear. Obama, for example, took his pitch for higher fuel-efficiency standards to the most-challenging audience, Detroit.

And in October 2002, when our country was horribly bruised by Sept. 11, he came out against the war in Iraq: "I don't oppose all wars. ... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. ... What I am opposed to is a rash war."

Such statements might sound unpatriotic — unless, of course, the speaker turns out to be correct. In an Obama administration, American troops have a chance to start coming home.

Americans have not selected a candidate for president directly from the Senate since 1960, when they elected Sen. John Kennedy, who offered similar charisma and hope.

Obama, more than other candidates, is gut-level inspiring. All candidates speak in platitudes that make us feel good. Sometimes their words actually move us.

"We want a politics that reflects our best values," Obama said early in the campaign. "We want a politics that reflects our core decency, a politics that is based on a simple premise that we stand and fall together."

We need that after the divisiveness of Bush-Cheney. Obama would rather talk to world leaders than rattle sabers at them.

That approach is likely to appeal to moderates and independents if they participate in Washington's Feb. 9 caucuses and Feb. 19 primary.

Obama's personal story offers progress in the ongoing struggle to be a more comfortable, racially diverse country. The son of a white mother from Kansas and an absent father from Kenya, he doesn't need to say much about diversity. He moves the issue forward just by waking up in the morning. Obama would be the first African-American president. But in his way of transcending the harshness of typical racial politics, he makes that almost a side point.

Obama has realistic ideas about education: performance pay and universal prekindergarten that is not mandatory; after-school and summer programs.

Obama would mandate health-insurance coverage for children, but not for adults. His approach to expanding coverage and stemming escalating costs is pragmatic enough to gain legislative traction.

Obama speaks eloquently about media issues. His positions encourage a public worried about a consolidated media. He supports network neutrality and laments media consolidation. He co-sponsored a bill to stop recent changes to the cross-ownership rule adopted by the Federal Communications Commission. Obama says he would appoint FCC commissioners who will work in the public's interest and against media concentration.

Obama has the smarts, the plans and, yes, the charisma to capably lead and transform a nation that aches for a new direction.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer recommends

For the Democrats: Obama

BARRING SOME UNFORESEEABLE EVENT, the Democratic Party is about to make history. Its presidential nominee this November will be either the first woman or the first African-American to carry the standard of a major political party. With the contest between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois a virtual deadlock, Ohio Democrats on March 4 can play a critical role in this historic decision.

As usual with intraparty battles, the policy and ideological differences between Clinton and Obama are slight. Both share the party's liberal traditions on social and domestic issues. Both are committed to expanding health coverage and to closing the gap between rich and poor. Both oppose the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq. Both promise to break America's addiction to carbon-based fuels.

Given these similarities, Ohio Democrats have to ask themselves which candidate is more likely, first, to win the White House, and, then, to persuade a closely divided country to embrace his or her vision of change. Put even more pointedly: Who is more likely to change the world of a child born in 2008?

The answer, we think, is Barack Obama.

Although Obama stands on the precipice of a historic breakthrough, his personal story is a classic only-in-America saga: A white mother from Kansas. A black father from Kenya. A childhood in multi-ethnic Hawaii. Scholarships to Ivy League schools. Work as a community organizer and later a law professor in Chicago. Two terms in the Illinois Senate, then a landslide election to the U.S. Senate. An electrifying keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

That speech laid out the template for this campaign. He has challenged America to move beyond rigid racial, religious or partisan divides to focus instead on shared, national goals. It's a message that appeals to young voters and independents, to disillusioned Democrats eager to regain a sense of possibility and, yes, hope.

Obama's frequent talk of hope strikes some people as naive. It leads others to question his toughness. But Obama understands something his critics do not: Change requires vision and optimism, shared sacrifice and mutual trust. Hope can sustain those elements; a presidency defined by political tactics cannot.

Hillary Clinton is an exceptionally bright and accomplished woman. Only a fool could dispute that. It would be nice if Obama's policy proposals were as meaty as those she has put forward. It's no wonder she wants Democrats to see this race as a choice between resumes.

But in a campaign where history matters, she carries an inordinate amount of baggage. Who wants to relive the soap operas of the 1990s?

Bill Clinton says his wife excelled at "making positive changes in other people's lives." Consider that construction. Then listen as Obama talks of bringing people together to change their own lives.

America needs a fresh start. Barack Obama is the Democrat to provide it.