It is no surprise to us that many voters have not yet made up their minds who should be our next president. On our editorial board, at least one of us won't decide until the last minute.

Both the major candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, have overcome remarkably steep odds to become their parties' nominees. Both bring great powers of intellect, passion and persuasion to a job that arguably is the most challenging in the world. Certainly it is the most important.

Yet for many independent voters, sad to say, the choice has come down to which candidate presents the lesser risk to the nation's security and financial health. Americans are worried about their futures more than at any time since the last world war, and find much less reassurance in either candidate than we would hope.

Obama has been a disappointment insofar as, even at the brink of worldwide financial collapse, he clings to promises of spending that would be excessive in the best of times. His much acclaimed coolness in the face of adversity has made a difference, but it is impossible for a voter to know how much of that is stagecraft, and where his convictions, not just his ambitions, truly lie.

McCain, without trading unduly on it, has earned a special place in most Americans' hearts for his indomitable courage while suffering, as an imprisoned young fighter pilot, some of the most horrendous conditions imaginable. Yet those great strengths, surfacing in him now as the nation's oldest candidate for president, seem more like impulsiveness or worse.

Both candidates make similar promises to lead change in correcting corrupted processes of government, in relieving the nation's dependence on Mideast oil, in revivifying inner-city schools, in raising expectations of environmental balance, in bringing decent health care to all, in ending the Iraq war honorably, and somehow, vaguely, making life better for the middle class. But neither, except for impractical proposals that seem mainly aimed at gathering votes, has confronted in a realistic, much less inspiring way, our financial morass.

Americans are starved for leadership. But leadership and politics come together only when the dominant values are authenticity and courage.

That's what we hope to see from both of these candidates in the remaining few days of their campaigns. It's possible, if one should clearly surpass the other in committing himself convincingly to those values, we could change our minds yet one more time before the ballots are cast.

But not likely. Barring that, our recommendation is to vote for the candidate who thus far has shown greater stability, wisdom, and at least the potential to challenge Americans not just to prevail, but to strive toward greatness. In our judgment, that is Barack Obama.