POLL: How important is trusting a candidate?

[Mother Of Four]

Just a small disclaimer- Even though I support Obama there have been issues raised on both sides, from the whole Wright thing for HRC supporters, to Bosnia for Obama supporters. I've seen all sorts of comments, and would like to get a feel to see if I'm on the same page with the majority. It's been a disturbing couple of weeks for me.

I tried to cover all bases. For what it's worth, my personal opinion is if you can't trust them to be forthright- how can you trust them to fulfill what they are saying they will do? For me it's boiled down to who can I have more faith in to lead the country in the direction it needs to go to prosper.

(Edited for clarity)

[mrcheerful]

1. Trust? How does one put trust into elections? Trust is earned not given

and even then it on shakey ground.

[democrattotheend]

2. Issues are most important to me, but character and trust are important

And I tend to choose my primary candidate based on the latter. But in the general I vote on issues...I disagree with the Republican Party platform too much to support any of its candidates even if they are decent people. But I do care about a candidate's character - not just honesty and trustworthiness, but whether they are genuinely dedicated to at least some of the issues they talk about, how they treat the people around them, whether they genuinely care about people. I read an article a while ago about how Hillay treated the White House staff and Secret Service detail poorly, and it came from a right wing source (Ron Kessler) so I don't know if it's true or not, but if it is then that bothers me. Obama is not perfect but he seems a lot more authentic and decent than most politicians, probably because he has not been around Washington that long, and everything I have read and everyone I have talked to suggests that he is the same way behind the scenes as he is in public.