The Philadelphia Inquirer decides not to decide — offering an endorsement for Barack Obama for president but also giving a dissenting voice to editorial board members favoring John McCain.

Sunday: John McCain shakes hands in Ohio as Barack Obama reaches out to voters in North Carolina (AP Photo).

In the battle of newspaper endorsements, Barack Obama picked up some key support Sunday from large circulation dailies like The Chicago Tribune and Houston Chronicle, but the Philadelphia Inquirer took the unusual step of endorsing the Democrat while offering a dissenting editorial board op-ed for Republican John McCain.

The city’s biggest newspaper wrote in its top opinion piece that it was backing Obama because he would represent a clean break from Bush administration policies.

“Both major candidates are trying to avoid association with Bush’s failed policies. But only one does so successfully. On every issue important to America, Barack Obama offers a plan that would pull this nation from the precipice built by bad Bush decisions. The Inquirer endorses BARACK OBAMA for president,” the paper’s editorial board wrote.

The article goes on to say that the editors can’t believe McCain is for change — despite his maverick record — in part because he voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time and in part because McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate was a “blatant overture to women voters and evangelical Christians” that backfired when Palin “proved she is not prepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.”

But in another editorial that appeared in the same edition, editors wrote that “no one is better prepared than John McCain to serve as commander in chief” as the country operates in Iraq and Afghanistan, works with Pakistan to help kill or capture the perpetrators of Sept. 11.

The paper wrote that McCain has stood up to generals, would send chills down the spines of pork-barrel spenders and understands that “raising taxes to ’spread the wealth’ is not a form of patriotism, but a burden — to Joe the plumber and other Americans trying to make ends meet.”

“And his character is unassailable. The selfless and courageous way he conducted himself during 5 1/2 years as a POW says much about the man,” reads the dissenting opinion piece.

The dissent also took issue with Obama’s hiring of chief strategist David Axelrod, who the paper says “helped lead Mayor John Street’s race-baiting re-election campaign.”

According to Editor & Publisher magazine, several newspapers this year have switched their endorsements from the Republican candidate in 2004 to the Democratic candidate in 2008, including The Austin American Statesmen, The Houston Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune the Denver Post and the New York Daily News.

While McCain was able to keep the Columbus Dispatch, the Dallas Morning News and the San Antonio Express-News in the red columnched from the Democratic candidate in 2004 to the Republican candidate in 2008.

However, a split decision by an editorial board — the way the Philadelphia paper came out on Sunday — is very unusual. In 2004, the York, Pa., Daily Record endorsed President Bush but offered a dissenting voice. In 1984, the Miami Herald opinion editor resigned when the publisher overruled the editorial board and offered the newspaper’s endorsement to President Reagan over challenger Walter Mondale.