I was hoping to vote last week, but didn’t get around to it. Living in Portland and working in Biddeford, I either lacked the time or the means (my wife and I share her car) to get to city hall and cast my ballot. Also, I’m a bit of a procrastinator. By the end of the weekend I was glad I hadn’t because I have changed my opinion in several races.

Newspaper editors love to give endorsements – to judge publicly and imagine that those judgments will affect how other people vote. What the actual effect is, I’m not sure. My sense is it is limited – either an endorsement acts as an affirmation of what a voter already believes or it calls into question the motives of the endorser by those who believe otherwise.

On the local level, where the candidates are friends, neighbors, former teachers or current landlords, an endorsement of any candidate from some guy who lives in Portland would be especially dubious.

In my own neighborhood, I learn more about my local candidates on my front stoop than by reading a newspaper. It’s on my stoop that I meet the candidates, talk to the guy down the street with the lawn sign and hear the buzz and commentary that is neighborhood gossip. I still read the papers to sort out the facts from the lies and to remove from consideration anyone whose public stances are anathema to me, but it is often the case that the differences between candidates are far more subtle – Is he a good guy? Why doesn’t she take better care of her home? Isn’t that the one who fired our friend? – that make the difference in the polling booth.

As we move up the ticket, these personal connections become less numerous as candidates seek to represent more and more people. While a state representative represents roughly 8,400 people, Maine’s first district congressman represents about 640,000. Maine senators represent roughly one million people and the President of the United States represents some 305 million Americans.

The value of neighborhood gossip diminishes in direct proportion to the size of a constituency. So, I am far less hesitant to opine about congressional candidates than who best to represent District 140.

I have been waiting to vote for Barack Obama since his electrifying convention speech back in 2004.

Since that time, Obama has mapped out a strategy for winning that seems to have anticipated every obstacle along the way. The strategy proved sound as his insurgent campaign outmaneuvered first a field of Democratic contenders and then just one during a long and hard-fought primary.

But mapping out a strategy is child’s play compared to actually executing it. If anyone has any doubts about Obama’s executive abilities, they need only look at what is self-evident: In four years, a man of mixed race born of no particular privilege (aside from being born an American) named Barack Hussein Obama went from being an Illinois State Senator to the odds-on favorite to being the next President of the United States. It doesn’t happen by accident and it certainly doesn’t happen by mistake.

The man also happens to have been the first African-American elected (elected!) President of the Harvard Law Review by the elite of the elite. The fact that some people believe this man is a fanatical Muslim Manchurian candidate who has somehow tricked so many people on such a vast scale says more about such people than it does about the candidate.

I believe that an Obama presidency will immediately cause us to reimagine what is possible in the United States. I believe he is authentic in his desire to represent all Americans by doing what he has done in the past  – finding common ground and building up from that foundation. I believe he is serious about reestablishing accountability where it has been lacking – in business and government and I believe that he will inspire millions to renew their faith in the American system. In short, I believe his is a transformational figure because his appeal is not that he is the lesser of two evils but represents the better angels of American exceptionalism.

I wish I could be as adamant about who should be our next Senator. In keeping with The Post’s policy of not printing negative information about a candidate immediately before the election, I will only say that voters have every right to hold politicians accountable for past stances, especially those involving war and peace. Past experience also also informs our opinions about who will be effective in the future.

While some of Susan Collins’ stances will prevent me from casting my vote for her, I believe she is an effective senator with moderate views on a host of issues. If early predictions hold true and Obama is elected along with a Democrat-controlled congress and senate, Collins’ influence may actually increase as a sought-after swing vote. Any downside to a Collins’ victory is tempered by my conclusion that her defeat holds little upside for the state. In the senate race I will be writing in the name Herbert Hoffman as a protest against both mainstream candidates as well as the undemocratic maneuvering that kept Hoffman off the ballot in the first place.

I believe in Barack Obama and I believe he ought to be given an opportunity to exercise the mandate of change his candidacy is founded on. I believe that electing a supportive congress is the best prescription for getting our country back on the right track. I will be voting for Chellie Pingree as Maine’s first district congressman. In two years voters will be allowed to reappraise this mandate and its execution when the congress comes up for election again.

Now all I need is some time to get to the polls.

–Ward Peck