If you believe the problem with America\u2019s war on terror is that it has not been ambitious enough, or tough enough, or monumental enough, McCain is your man. If you think the United States needs to be feared more than it needs to be loved, McCain is your man. And if you think that the economic policies of the past eight years – specifically Bush\u2019s low tax rates – are necessary for growth, McCain is the obvious choice.<\/p>\n
In some ways he is the last hope for the Republicans that their conservative movement is rescuable. McCain reassures them that the Bush era was not a total miscalculation but merely a good idea poorly executed.<\/p>\n
Obama represents something more radical: a return of the multilateral, international umbrella of traditional American diplomacy and alliance-building. He represents this even as America is at war with deeply destructive forces in the asymmetrical global battlefield and even as partners such as Russia and China seem uninterested in keeping the international system as a model of rational discourse. He is less likely to see a struggle between good and evil in the world than a dark but promising place where the American national interest and the elevation of human dignity in the developing world are compatible.<\/p>\n