<table border="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<b>CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press</b></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
When you vote for Democrat <person>Barack Obama</person> or Republican <person>Mitt Romney</person> in November, you'll be voting for more than a president. You'll be casting a ballot for and against a checklist of policies that touch your life and shape the country you live in.</p>
<p>
It can be hard to see, through the fog of negative ads, sound bite zingers and assorted other campaign nasties, that the election is a contest of actual ideas. But it is always so. A candidate's words connect to deeds in office.</p>
<p>
Roll back to 2008. Obama was the presidential candidate who promised to get the country on a path to
health insurance for all. He delivered. If you haven't noticed one way or another, you soon will.</p>
<p>
And back to 2000. <person>George W. Bush</person> ran on a platform of big tax cuts. That's precisely what the country got. A decade later, taxes are lower than they otherwise would have been.</p>
<p>
That's not to say you can count on Romney's checklist or Obama's to come into full being. You sure can't.</p>
<p>
By nature and necessity, the presidency is in large part a creature of compromise and improvisation. The unforeseen happens (the terrorist attacks), or circumstances change (the December 2007-June 2009 recession), or things that the candidate sets out to do run into a buzz saw in <org>Congress</org> (way too many examples to mention). That's why promises are broken, priorities shift and intentions get swept away by the fistful.</p>
<p>
Even so, you get what you vote for, probably about as often as not. And a lot of what you get, you will feel in a personal way, for better or worse, no matter how distant <location idsrc="xmltag.org" value="LU/us.dc.wash">Washington</location> seems from your world.</p>
<p>
The wars called away people in your orbit, if not in your family. The spending that each candidate wants to do _ Romney vows military expansion, Obama would put more into education, for starters _ is bound to benefit many livelihoods in some fashion, at the risk of even deeper national debt. And read their fine print: <org>Medicare</org> won't be the same in the years ahead. Perhaps not <org>Social Security</org>, either. (There's that national debt, after all.)</p>
<p>
Across the spectrum of issues, Obama and Romney have drawn contrasts and telegraphed divergent ways for the nation to go.</p>
<p>
You can't believe everything you hear. But you can believe enough to know that <chron>Tuesday, Nov. 6</chron>, is a true day of decision.</p>
<p>
In this series, <org>Associated Press</org> writers who cover subjects at stake in the election look at the positions of the candidates, the underlying issues _ and why it matters.</p>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="right">
Copyright: </td>
<td>
(c) 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">
Source: </td>
<td>
Associated Press</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">
Wordcount: </td>
<td>
432</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<!-- start_body --><br />
