By DEROY MURDOCK, Scripps Howard News Service

NEW YORK -- Congratulations to Barack Obama, the incoming 44th President of the United States. He soon will fill America's highest office after a nearly flawless, first-time White House bid. He demonstrates that education, eloquence, and elegance trump lingering racial bias. His staunchly left-liberal ideas aside, he inspires in many ways.

Americans will choose Tuesday between two clear and distinct agendas. John McCain proposes more freedom, choice, and prosperity. Barack Obama offers less of each.

Barack Obama's critics appropriately have spotlighted his ties to William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, the remorseless co-founders and leaders of the terrorist Weather Underground. However, Obama's detractors largely overlook Ayers' campaign contribution to Obama.

Read his lips: Brand-new taxes.Barack Obama promises to return personal income taxes to Clinton-era levels, with the top rate rising from 35 percent to 39.6. His agenda -- call it "No Tax Hike Left Behind" -- boosts levies on capital gains (from 15 percent to 20), dividends (from 15 percent to 20), and death (from 0 percent in 2010 to 45, on estates exceeding $7 million).

NEW YORK -- "The only involvement I've had with ACORN was I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor-voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs."Thus spoke Barack Obama in Wednesday's debate against John McCain. Obama's statement was clear, definitive, and stunningly untrue.

Barack Obama's supporters have trivialized his connections to former Weather Underground terrorists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood," Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on April 16.

Election Day? Who needs it?Americans already are casting ballots, five weeks before November 4. This is a boon for vote fraud and a bust for democracy.In Ohio, most dramatically, an individual can register to vote between September 30 and October 6, then immediately receive an absentee ballot. Existing and brand-new electors also can cast ballots at early-voting centers.

It is beyond irritating to watch President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gift wrap their $700 billion early Christmas present for financially irresponsible bankers and the overleveraged borrowers who love them. These "three wise men" consider theirs the only method to stop the turmoil roiling trading desks from Gotham to Tokyo.

There's no avoiding this conclusion: The federal government's breathtaking economic interventionism has turned America into a democratic-socialist state. The fact that these drastic incursions are happening under an allegedly conservative administration leaves this right-winger oscillating between head-spinning disbelief and exhausted disenchantment.

"Now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work," Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said August 28 in his convention acceptance speech. He told the crowd in Denver: "I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons."