It is only about 48 hours until voters start casting ballots on election day, and still all the scientific polling being conducted nationally and in key battleground states cannot definitely tell who will win the race for the presidency. That is a testament to just how evenly divided this nation is politically.

But the partisan lines are drawn much differently in Alabama. Here, the polls clearly show that George W. Bush is not only very likely to win, but to win by a comfortable margin. That political leaning is also likely to be reflected in Republican wins in most congressional seats and in the U.S. Senate.

But editorial endorsements are not about picking along party lines; in fact, the Montgomery Advertiser strives to avoid being identified with either political party. That is reflected in both past and current endorsements. For instance, four of the five most recent presidential endorsements by this newspaper went to Republicans, and out of 19 endorsements made by the Montgomery Advertiser in this general election cycle, 11 went to Republicans and eight to Democrats.

Editorial endorsements also are not about picking winners; they are about picking the candidates that this newspaper's editorial board thinks would best serve the public. And when it comes to the presidency, that is John Kerry.

Not that Kerry is perfect. But he is the candidate who offers the best hope of ending the war in Iraq in a manner that both minimizes U.S. troop losses and maximizes the chance that Iraq will remain a free and sovereign nation. And he holds the most promise of refocusing the resources now being spent in Iraq on what the real war this nation should be fighting the war on terrorism.

Several of the definitive issues in this election are affected by the war in Iraq. It is pulling tremendous resources away from the war against al-Qaida and other terrorists. Funding the war is one of the causes of the replacement of annual budget surpluses with record budget deficits. The links between the United States and many traditional allies have been strained or broken by differences over Iraq.

Much ado has been made about whether the war in Iraq was justified. The debate over weapons of mass destruction that did not exist and links between Saddam and al-Qaida that either didn't exist or were at best tenuous is one that this nation needs to go through. But the real debate in this election should be over what happens now.

Bush has accused Kerry of "flip-flopping" on the Iraq issue. If that is true, add this editorial page (and millions of Americans) to the list of flip-floppers. Like many Americans who now question the wisdom of the invasion of Iraq, this editorial page strongly supported it at the time, based on what the Bush administration was saying about WMD and al-Qaida links. But changing attitudes when new and vastly different information becomes available is not flip-flopping; it is facing reality.

That's where the Bush administration may be at its weakest. The stubborn refusal of Bush and Vice President Cheney to acknowledge that mistakes were made in invading Iraq; that invading Iraq was not crucial to the war on terrorism; and that a truly international coalition is necessary to help rebuild Iraq could keep the current administration from ever finding an acceptable way out of this quagmire.

Kerry is far more likely than Bush to build the kind of international coalition that can rebuild Iraq and give Iraqis the best chance to have a free and stable nation.

Politically, Kerry is also the most likely of the two candidates to move toward the political middle and to pull this deeply divided nation together. Despite his promises in 2000 to be a "uniter, not a divider," Bush has done little to reach out to the other side of the political spectrum.

There are a host of domestic issues in which the two candidates offer clear choices. Social Security is an example. Kerry promises to support and strengthen Social Security as it currently is set up; Bush wants to allow young payers to divert Social Security payments to outside investments, but he offers no guidance on how or if he would replace the money that keeps the program afloat.

Kerry and Bush have one thing in common: They both are promising far more than the nation is likely to be able to pay for during the upcoming four years. But Kerry promises to pay as you go; Bush's record shows he is willing to build record deficits that will saddle our children and grandchildren with debt.

The choice for president on Nov. 2 is not an easy one, but because of his clear-eyed view of world realities and his domestic policies that hold greater promise of helping the poor and the middle class, the Montgomery Advertiser recommends John Kerry on Nov. 2.