We all want the best for our children, and when I take them with me to the voting booth tomorrow, there are so many reasons that I know a vote for Barack Obama is what's best for them.

Here are a few:

1. I want them to be safe.

I don't want my daughters to be the first generation of women drafted into war. I was against the Iraq War from the start, and so was Barack Obama. John McCain appears to view Iraq as a do-over for Vietnam, and he's determined to stay there until he "wins" it.

It took 18 years and 58,000 American lives for US forces to figure out that Vietnam was unwinnable.

I also want a government that fulfills its role of protecting its citizens' health and safety in the marketplace. Under eight years of Bush, we have seen every government agency eroded until they are powerless -- and disasters have cropped up in all directions. The Food and Drug Administration was shaved, and we have suffered outbreaks of E. coli and Mad Cow disease. The Consumer Product Safety Commission was stripped, and we have babies dying unnecessarily because lethal cribs were left on the market after authorities knew about them. I don't want my children to be the next victims of a natural disaster because a friend-of-the-president federal appointee couldn't manage an evacuation. They will already suffer because of the disaster in the deregulated financial market. McCain has called himself a deregulator time and time again.

I also know that Obama is the candidate most committed to ending global warming, who will not put the demands of corporations ahead of the needs of people like us who need this planet for living on. I've been changing my ways to combat global warming, but I want an Obama administration to lead us into a a greener future.

2. I want them to be healthy.

The most striking difference between the two presidential candidates is in health care. Both recognize that the American health care system is broken -- we pay more than any other nation for worse results. McCain's plan seeks to change the health care system by dismantling it -- by taxing employer health benefits and encouraging individuals to shop around, he will weaken the employer-based system and add 5 million people to the uninsured, according to the journal Health Affairs.

 Obama, by contrast, would build on the employer-based health insurance system, making the premiums more affordable and filling in the gaps to work toward an America where everyone is covered.

A lot of Democratic campaign literature, like Obama's half-hour TV spot last week, focus on the plight of the working poor. My family is not poor, we are middle-income, regular people. We have done what we can to cushion our family from possible hard times. And yet, McCain's health plan scares the heck out of me, not just for the uninsured -- for whom we end up paying when they turn to emergency rooms for needed care -- but for us.

It's a tough economy out there -- no time for us to venture into a new system that puts our benefits at risk when we may need them most. Like most workers, my husband worries about losing his job. Suppose he is lucky, and if he loses his job he gets another one within a few months. I am pregnant. I have no guarantees that the health carrier at my husband's new employer would accept me with the "pre-existing condition" of pregnancy. And what about my daughter's asthma? Obama promises to stop insurance companies from denying coverage, but McCain does not. Suppose McCain's taxation of work-based health benefits had already taken effect, and my husband's new employer decided to just stop offering health coverage. Would I be able to find an insurance company willing to cover my delivery? What if I need a cesarian section or other expensive intervention?

Now, I know that even if Obama does win, any changes in health care policy would come too late for me and my current pregnancy. But do not want my daughters to grow up to work as hard as we do and still worry about losing everything to a health crisis.

The details of the plans aside, I have confidence that Obama cares more about families' health. This became crystal clear during the last debate. Listen to Obama reach for common ground with the Right on reducing abortions. Then listen to the derision with which McCain mentions "the mother's health."  Pro-life or pro-choice, I think most people can pick out, from that exchange, which man really cares about the health of American women AND their children.

 3. I want them to be inspired.

I grew up in a cynical time -- the Reagan 1980s. The atmosphere was a shrug and a sigh -- there's a trillion-dollar defecit, but we're all going to get nuked anyway so who cares? I envied the heady politican atmosphere in which my parents grew up, with their Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. I want it to turn out better this time, so much better.

I want my little girls to grow up hearing that yes, they can. I want a leader who will challenge them to serve their communties and change the world, and I know that Obama will do that. And I want a president I'd be proud to see my children emulate -- who wouldn't be proud to see their child get an Ivy League education, then spend their time working on behalf of the poor and fighting for civil rights?

I have and heard of so many Republicans, Pro-Life Christians and others cross over to Obama during this campaign, and I understand why. Occasionally in the course of history an exceptional human being crops up, and even if you don't agree with him on every issue, it's easy to see Obama is one of those exceptional people. I want Obama's America for my girls. Now I have to go make my get-out-the-vote calls to help make it happen.