What are we voting for?

Christmas is early this year – and it has nothing to do with merchants trying to stimulate people to start spending money!

It's all about the election and finding out the results. It's like looking at Christmas gifts and wondering what they contain.

We have to wait until the big day to find out.

Sometimes a small gift is in a big package; sometimes that big package contains a BIG surprise. That's part of the fun but the truth is, sometimes we're disappointed by the contents of that package.

The early Christmas is tomorrow – Election Day. When the polls close, Americans will await the results of their voting plus the tallies of the millions who voted early or mailed their ballots.

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That means by tomorrow night, barring controversy, accusations and complaints over vote counts, Americans will know what's in store for them for at least the next four years.

It sounds so nice and neat. People vote for the man to head the party ticket, he picks a running mate, they campaign and people vote their preference.

Would it were that easy.

This campaign feels never-ending. Election Day is almost an anticlimax, and even for those dedicated to politics, most people are fed up with it all and want it over.

The race has devolved to what seems a "mine is bigger than yours" contest. Who's cutting or raising taxes the most? Who's going to give what to whom, and who's going to pay for it?

We've gone through months of campaigning, speeches, debates, interviews, glad-handing, talking, sniping, accusing, reacting, truth-telling, and yes, lying, on all levels of politics – local, county, state and national.

All those races are important because the winners will have the power to make decisions affecting how we live our lives, run our businesses, raise our families, handle our finances and, yes, protect our country.

But there's something very different about this presidential race. There may be two packages under that election tree – one containing a Republican ticket, the other, Democrat. The difference is what we know about them.

If the Republican ticket wins, we'll know what we're getting: a GOP president who's not conservative and who will cross the aisle to compromise. Conservatives don't like that part about John McCain. They hope Sarah Palin will temper that.

But conservatives know, and so do many liberals although it pains them to admit it, that McCain will put the defense of this country first. They've no doubt where John McCain stands on that and no doubt what a McCain administration would do.

He's experienced and up front about who he is and what he believes. He doesn't call himself a maverick for nothing.

Then there's the other election package: Barack Obama. Therein lies the dilemma. He's the Democrat. He's very popular. His devotees react like rock-star groupies.

Obama's created an attractive, appealing image. In a day of television and immediate gratification, he has crowd appeal.

But Barack Obama, the man, is a cipher. There are so many questions about him that remain unanswered but because the "mainstream" media are so in his thrall, those questions aren't asked.

When conservative media and thinking Americans raise those issues, they're stonewalled by Obama and everyone around him. In fact, Obama has clamped down on any details about his life.

Virtually every source of information about his background, experience or positions he may have taken is sealed.

Why did school records in Indonesia show he was registered as a Muslim when he claims he's always been a Christian?

Don't even ask, unless you want to be labeled a bigot.

His college records at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard? Sealed. Information about his law firm clients? Sealed. His work with the Annenberg Trust? Sealed. Details of his associations with people of questionable backgrounds? Sealed.

When asked about proof of where he was born, the records in Hawaii, Indonesia and Kenya are sealed. Even his grandmother in Kenya, who's said she was present at his birth in that country, has been ordered by that government to keep silent – until, as she put it, after the election.

Don't ask about any of that, unless you want to be labeled a racist or a bigot or both – or worse!

What's that about? How did we get to this point in American politics that we're voting for a candidate who we're told to accept at face value.

We see a slick presentation and a smooth talker.

We hear platitudes, promises and intimations of utopia. Just don't ask how all this will work or how it'll be paid for.

We know Obama has no experience in business, in international affairs, in military matters or in developing meaningful legislation.

We know he's a product of the corrupt political machine in Chicago, and his tactics in eliminating political opposition have been ruthless.

We also know that he relishes the image of, what Louis Farrakhan calls him, the "Messiah." And of course, Obama is half black. That seems to excuse everything.

But we're not seeking a savior. We're electing a president, a man with power over our lives and influence in the world.

How foolish is it to choose someone who's not only inexperienced but naïve? Obama would be easy prey for foreign leaders who are our enemies.

Obama is like Oz – just a man behind the curtain, pulling levers and flipping switches to create illusions to fool the people.

Sorry, folks, George Orwell said it: "If freedom means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear."

Consider it said.