p>Our view: Just vote, baby.At issue: Obama or McCain?br style=”font-weight: bold;”br /Our view: Just vote, baby.

It’s customary for editorial pages to endorse particular candidates on the eve of elections. This year, as absentee voting registration deadlines fast approach, we simply endorse voting.

Last week,The Beacon reported on two different Web sites designed by Emerson students to help tamp the tedium of registration: govoteabsentee.org and beabsentee.org. We urge any unregistered students to visit those sites and sign up; it’s never been easier. The choice is too important to leave to others, and not voting is tantamount to allowing others to tell us how to live our lives. The important thing isn’t who you choose, just that you choose.

So if you choose a maverick war hero with nearly three decades of Congressional experience, we’re with you.

And if you choose the first black candidate from a major party who can inspire thousands with his oratory, that’s fine too.

If grandfatherly gravitas is your thing, get it.

And, if you think it’s time for a change, choose it.

If you agreed with President George Bush 90 percent of the time, only one candidate did too.

And if you’re the type of person the editors of theNational Review would call “progressive,” vote with their least favorite candidate.

If you’re among the richest Americans and will benefit from extending President Bush’s tax cuts and financial deregulation, vote for your wallet.

And if you’re a college student who will be among the least wealthy 95 percent of Americans upon graduation, again, vote with your economic interests.

If you don’t think homosexuals should even be allowed civil unions, vote with the Christian right.

And if you support gay marriage, or are a freshman who hasn’t made it through your first May at Emerson, vote with the party of Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank.

If you want a president who will nominate judges and executives from the party who gave us Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez and Paul Wolfowitz, vote Republican.

And if you want a president who will, if nothing else, rid Washington power posts of the GOP, vote Democrat.

If you’re betting on an inveterate gambler who went all-in by suspending his campaign to “fix the economy,” roll the dice.

And if you prefer to finally elect an American president who tackles problems with sober, measured responses, take the plunge.

If you’re afraid anyone will mistake meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a tacit endorsement his Holocaust denials, your candidate announced himself at the first presidential debate.

But if you “understand” that developing nuclear weapons lends credibility to any madman’s ideology, your choice, again, is clear.

For that matter, if you think America’s president should be able to pronounce “Ahmadinejad” in less than three tries, your decision should have been made by the debate.

Finally, if you, too, oppose reproductive rights, are a hockey mom and don’t value a basic grasp of American foreign policy in the vice president,The Beacon is behind you.

And if you’d rather send Sarah Palin back to Alaska on the moose she rode in on, please, Emerson students, vote accordingly.