WASHINGTON – Esquire is backing Democrat Barack Obama for president – its first endorsement in the magazine's 75-year history.

The Illinois senator is “the only possible choice to lead the country,” editors wrote in the November issue, on newsstands Oct. 14. They also encouraged people to vote for Obama because the next president will influence the direction of the Supreme Court.

“The best argument for the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States is written quite clearly in the peaks and squiggles of John Paul Stevens' EKG,” they wrote of the 88-year-old justice.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has run a “cheap and dishonorable campaign,” they said. And his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is “stunningly unqualified.”

The editors wrote that McCain has not offered evidence of how things for Americans would change if he were to succeed President Bush.

“Bushism must be ripped out, root and branch, everywhere it has been established, or else the presidential election of 2008 is a worthless exercise in futility,” the editors said.

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