ILLUSTRATION BY JASON WALTON

On February 5, New York Democrats will help determine their party's presidential candidate. It is an immensely important decision - and, for many Democrats, a difficult one.

It is crucial that a Democrat be elected in November. The Bush administration has done severe harm to the country, and all of the Republican candidates except Ron Paul seem determined to continue the Bush-Cheney policies.

Any of the four Democratic candidates would reverse course in every important area. All of them are far more progressive than the Republicans (Hillary Clinton the least so, Dennis Kucinich the most).

On many of the key issues, there's hardly a hair's-breadth of difference among the three top candidates -on their stands, and on what they propose.

But that's not what most voters will base their decisions on. They'll go with their gut.

Voters don't make "cold, rational decisions," the Times' David Brooks wrote last week. "In reality," said Brooks, "we voters - all of us - make emotional, intuitive decisions about who we prefer, and then come up with post-hoc rationalizations to explain the choices that were already made beneath conscious awareness."

And Brooks thinks that's just fine. "My own intuition is that this unconscious cognition is pretty effective," he wrote. "People are skilled at judging character." (You might wonder what that says about the election of George Bush, but intuition is undoubtedly playing a role in the Democratic campaign.)

This newspaper is endorsing Barack Obama, based on both intuition and issues.

Why not Hillary Clinton?

There's no question that Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president. She is bright, experienced, and politically savvy. But there are compelling reasons not to want her to be the Democrats' presidential candidate.

One is her vote for the Iraq war resolution in 2002, and her defense of that vote since. Clinton insists that she was misled, and that she did not think Bush would attack Iraq. She was either dangerously naïve or politically calculating, risking war in order to appear tough in a future presidential campaign.

Worse, she had another option. Prior to the vote on the war resolution, Michigan Senator Carl Levin introduced a substitute, a resolution that would have required United Nations approval before the US used force against Iraq.

In a New York Times op-ed piece last March, former Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee recalled efforts he and other senators made to get the Levin resolution approved. "We asserted that the Iraqi regime, though undeniably heinous, did not constitute an imminent threat to United States security," Chafee wrote, "and that our campaign to renew weapons inspections in Iraq - whether by force or diplomacy - would succeed only if we enlisted a broad coalition that included Arab states."

"We also urged our colleagues to take seriously the admonitions of our allies in the region - Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey," wrote Chafee. "As King Abdullah of Jordan warned, ‘a miscalculation in Iraq would throw the whole area into turmoil.'"

Clinton voted against the Levin resolution.

Worse yet, last fall she took a similar step on Iran.

It is no secret that some in the Bush administration, including the vice president, have been pushing - and continue to push - for an attack on Iran. A crucial vote furthering that effort took place in the Senate in October. The issue was the Kyl-Lieberman resolution, which urged the Bush administration "to declare Iran's 125,000-member Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization."

In an October 14 New York Times article, Helene Cooper quoted foreign-policy experts' concerns about the resolution. The Guards, a Carnegie Endowment expert told her, "are not Al Qaeda. They're not a group of voluntary jihadists signing up to fight the United States. Many are conscripts taken from the regular army."

Members of the Guards are "far more representative of Iranian society than most Americans realize," wrote Cooper. "So labeling Iran's elite fighters as terrorists is a move that is more likely to drive the Iranian population closer to the hard-liners in Tehran."

The administration was divided on Kyl-Lieberman, with Dick Cheney and other force proponents supporting it and the state department, apparently, opposing it. Twenty-two senators, worried about the administration's plans for Iran, voted against the resolution. Among them were Democrats Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Pat Leahy, and Jim Webb, and Republicans Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar.

Clinton voted in favor of it. (It is certainly troubling that while Barack Obama says he would have voted against the resolution, he was campaigning and did not vote at all.)

There are similar concerns about Clinton on other issues. Her stand on immigration sounds good. But her actions seem driven primarily by politics. In one debate last fall, she waffled on the Spitzer drivers-license plan, but in the next one, she played politics. While Obama tried to address the complexity of the issue, Clinton jumped in with a one-word refutation of the plan, leaving her besieged governor hanging out to dry.

Incomprehensibly, Clinton has supported a constitutional amendment banning flag burning. She has opposed lifting the ban on family travel to Cuba. (Obama wants the ban lifted.) This is either pandering in its worst form or an indication of where Clinton's sentiments lie and what positions she would take as president.

"The psychodrama that is Clinton's long fight with the right - and with deep-seated forces in the country - has tended to blind too many people to straightforward assessments of her actual views and political record," wrote Sam Rosenfeld and Matthew Yglesias in the American Prospect in April.

Clinton, they concluded, is less liberal than she seems and is one of the most hawkish of the Democrats.

"One area in which she has stood out from the Democratic pack," wrote Rosenfeld and Yglesias, "is in adopting socially conservative rhetoric and positions, whether pushing a bill banning flag burning, attempting to ‘reframe' the abortion debate, or calling for an increased federal role in video-game censorship."

And that gets at the heart of a major concern about Clinton: trust. It's hard to know what she believes, whom she would listen to if she were president, and to whom she would be beholden.

Trust is important. For the nation to make the changes it must make in domestic and foreign policies, there will have to be a lot of compromise in Congress - and the next president will have to convince Americans of the need for change. Without trust, it will be easy for special interests - big oil companies and pharmaceuticals among them - to overwhelm the president's message.

Finally, there is real doubt about whether Clinton can be elected. There is widespread, incomprehensible hatred of her among conservatives, and that is sure to grow during a general election campaign, fed by Republican campaign operatives, right-wing media, and the Swiftboaters. It is possible, certainly, that the majority of voters will be repulsed by the vitriol. But it's a risk, and that risk seems greater than that the majority of voters are closet racists.

Why not Edwards?

John Edwards would be a good president. And on some issues - health care, in particular - he is stronger and more progressive than Clinton and Obama. His attacks on corporate control of American policy deserve a place in every Democrat's campaign. And he has been much more vocal than Obama and Clinton on the need to address poverty.

Regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination, wrote Christopher Hayes in the January 28 Nation, "the fact remains that the Edwards campaign has set the domestic policy agenda for the entire field. He was the first with a bold universal health-care plan, the first with an ambitious climate change proposal that called for cap and trade, and the leader on reforming predatory lending practices and raising the minimum wage to a level where it regains its lost purchasing power."

But Edwards has focused almost his entire campaign on domestic issues. As crucial as those are, the country faces so many foreign-policy challenges that it's essential to elect a president who recognizes their importance.

It's also a concern that Edwards hasn't yet captured the interest and enthusiasm of voters. Unquestionably, the mainstream media have treated him unfairly, virtually ignoring him during the early campaign period. And American politics' reliance on money has also been a handicap. But Mike Huckabee has able to overcome both well enough to become a contender, at least up to this point. Edwards' populist stand and, as the economic news worsens, his focus on helping the middle class, should have resonated more than it has.

The negative tone of Edwards' campaign may be part of the problem. The country doesn't need the almost mindless happy talk of a Ronald Reagan, but Obama's message of hope and change seems to be connecting with voters more than Edwards' anger-tinged attacks.

As for Kucinich...

By far the most liberal of the Democratic candidates, Kucinich proposes free education from kindergarten through college, withdrawal from NAFTA, and - unlike Obama, Clinton, and Edwards - true universal health care: a single-payer, universal health care system.

Some of his positions and proposals have more rhetoric than substance, however, and his anger is troubling. In addition - or perhaps as a result - he stands, to put it bluntly, absolutely no chance of being elected. You can vote for him out of commitment to important liberal positions. You can vote for him to make a statement. But this is a crucial Democratic primary. Democrats who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 helped give us George Bush and Dick Cheney.

For Obama:

For many Democrats, a key issue is Hillary Clinton's longer experience in government. That is unquestionably an issue. Voters have been so conditioned to be terrified that a candidates' length of time in government service seems to have overwhelming importance.

Voters need to question their emphasis on "experience," however. As columnist Nicholas Kristof put it in the Times on Sunday, if government experience is the principal qualification in this race, Hillary Clinton should endorse John McCain. "To put it another way," Kristof added, "think which politician is most experienced in the classic sense, and thus - according to the ‘experience' camp - best qualified to become the next president. That's Dick Cheney."

Certainly we don't need a naïf walking into the White House next January. But along with experience, voters must consider how a new president will act on that experience. We must also consider whom the new president will listen to: who the presidential advisers will be. On both counts, Obama is stronger.

Obama's critics say that Obama lacks substance. Liberal columnist Ted Rall calls him an "empty suit." Obama talks about change, Hillary Clinton and others have said, but he doesn't say how he'll accomplish it.

Either these critics are not listening to Obama, and not looking beyond the debate soundbites, or they hope voters aren't.

Read in-depth articles about him, and study his issues papers, and you find plenty of substance. You may not agree with his proposals (and many of them differ little from Clinton's and Edwards'), but the charge of "no substance" is simply wrong.

He wants to reduce Americans' dependence on foreign oil and address climate change. He supports raising fuel-efficiency standards. He supports a cap-and-trade system in which polluters will have to pay for emissions, "rather than giving these emission rights away to coal and oil companies." He would use some of the revenue to invest in clean energy, in research and development, and in helping workers affected by the transition to a new kind of economy.

He wants the US to rejoin international efforts to combat climate change and wants to create an international global energy forum of the world's largest energy-consuming nations.

He wants every home buyer eligible for mortgage-interest deductions, not just those who itemize their deductions. He wants to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, eliminate income taxes for senior citizens who make less than $50,000, create a tax credit for the first $4000 of college costs, and expand the Child and Dependent Care tax credit.

He proposes a "Zero to Five" plan that would provide money for pre-school programs and child care. He wants to expand funding for scholarships for teachers who will work in "underserved" districts and create a "Career Ladder" program to help train and reward quality teachers.

He wants to expand loan programs for small businesses. He wants to double federal funding for scientific research. He wants to close corporate tax loopholes. For homeowners caught in the subprime crisis, he wants a fund that would help them refinance or sell their homes.

He wants an additional increase in the minimum wage and wants the minimum wage indexed to inflation.

On immigration: He would fund increased border security. He would permit immigrants who are in the country illegally but are "otherwise playing by the rules" to pay a fine, learn English, and get in line to become citizens. He would increase immigration limits "to a level that keeps families together and meets the demand for jobs that employers cannot fill." He would reverse increases in citizenship application fees and speed up background checks. And to reduce immigration pressures, he would have the US government work with Mexico to promote more economic development there.

On Iraq: He wants to have all US combat troops out within 16 months. He would keep some troops in Iraq "to protect our embassy and diplomats," but he pledges not to build any permanent bases in Iraq. He wants the United Nations to "play a central role" in getting reconciliation among the factions in Iraq. He says he would "launch the most aggressive diplomatic effort in recent American history to reach a new compact on the stability of Iraq and the Middle East." He wants an international working group to address the issue of Iraqi refugees and proposes a fund of at least $2 billion to expand services for the refugees.

He wants to increase support for ex-offenders' job training, substance-abuse aid, and mental-health counseling - and create a prison-to-work program.

To address the concentrated poverty in US cities, he wants to create a Promise Neighborhoods program, modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone.

Presidential candidates don't come up with these kinds of proposals on their own. All of them have teams of advisers. And in the crucial area of foreign policy, both Obama's leanings and his advisers are telling.

James Traub's lengthy November profile of Obama in the New York Times Magazine includes a focus on US challenges in foreign policy. "The United States has had only one foreign policy and one national-security strategy since the transforming events of 9/11," writes Traub, "and this set of doctrines has been shaped by the very distinctive worldview of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and the men and women around them."

Traub cites the Princeton Project on National Security, a bipartisan study chaired by Anthony Lake, Bill Clinton's national security adviser, and George Shultz, Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan. The study "brought together many of the foreign-policy thinkers of both parties," wrote Traub, to "think through a post-post-9/11 strategy."

The foreign-policy strategy of the future, the experts concluded, must "offer different tools for different situations, rather than only the sharp edge of a blade," wrote Traub, "must pay close attention to ‘how others may perceive us differently than we perceive ourselves, no matter how good our intentions'; must recognize that other nations may legitimately care more about their neighbors or their access to resources than about terrorism; and must be ‘grounded in hope, not fear.'

"A post-post 9/11 strategy must harness the forces of globalization while honestly addressing the growing ‘perception of unfairness' around the world; must actively promote, not just democracy, but ‘a world of liberty under law'; and must renew multilateral instruments like the United Nations."

"In mainstream foreign-policy circles," wrote Traub, "Barack Obama is seen as the true bearer of this vision."

One foreign-policy expert told Traub: "There are maybe 200 people on the Democratic side who think about foreign policy for a living. The vast majority have thrown in their lot with Obama."

"There's a feeling that this is a guy who's going to help us transform the way America deals with the world," Ivo Daalder - who was a National Security Council official under Bill Clinton and is now an Obama adviser - told Traub.

And Traub offered this assessment of Obama from Anthony Lake (also an Obama adviser): "He has the kind of mind that works its way through complexities by listening and giving some edge of legitimacy to various points of view before he comes down on his, and that point of view embraces complexity."

Obama's message of "change" has resonated with some voters, particularly young ones. Clinton insists that she, too, represents change. And certainly a Clinton administration would be a marked change from the horrors of the Bush-Cheney years. But two things point to the difference in the magnitude of change that Obama represents.

One is the issue of dynasty. As one of our letter writers noted recently, if Clinton is elected and serves a second term, the country will be headed by members of only two families - Bush and Clinton - for 28 years. (And you could add to that the fact that prior to his election as president, Bush senior served eight years as vice president, giving us 36 years of the Bush-Clinton dynasties. And down in Florida, Jeb Bush waits in the wings.)

The other issue is the conduct of the Clinton campaign: the early assumption of inevitability and the no-holds-barred politics. Sly references to Obama's youthful drug use (ignoring Bill Clinton's own), insinuations that there are unpleasant surprises waiting to be exposed, behind-the-scenes whisperings that Obama is really a Muslim: this is old-style, dirty campaigning. It represents the past, not the future.

Some commentators have noted that among the advisers to both Clinton and Obama are people who served in the Clinton administration. But the Obama advisers are people who have broken with the Clinton approach.

The nation needs fresh ideas, fresh approaches, fresh blood: change. Barack Obama best represents it, and he offers the best hope for it.