It now appears almost certain that the presidential contest in 2008 will be between Sen. McCain and either Sen.Clinton or Obama. I have been asked on many occasions which contest I would prefer. My answer is that, as a conservative, I would rather see a contest between Sen. McCain and Clinton, as her negatives are so high that she would be a more vulnerable candidate in a general election than Sen. Obama would be.
As an American, however, I believe that a campaign of McCain v. Obama would be a more positive and better experience for the country. Why? If it is Sen. McCain v. Sen. Clinton, it will be a much more divisive and bitter campaign (as all the previous Clinton campaigns have been.) Furthermore, it will inevitably degenerate in large part into another bitter “slanging match” in the blood feud between the part of the 60’s generation that turned against the Vietnam War and the part that continued to see it as their patriotic duty to support the war and the troops. The country does not need yet another round of that bitter debate in which no one wins and everyone loses. As satisfying as the moral symmetry of having Senator McCain, the Vietnam War hero, possibly defeating the draft dodger’s wife would be for many of us, it would be needlessly divisive for the country, whichever candidate was left standing at the end of the day. All my instincts tell me that the lure to descend to the dark side of such a contest would be virtually irresistible for far too many of our citizens.
However, a contest between Senators McCain and Obama would be about the future, not the past, and which direction the country wanted to go, domestically and internationally. The choices would be clear and distinct and would be conducted in a much more positive way than any debate between Sen. McCain and his supporters and Sen. Clinton and her supporters could ever be. Such a campaign could clear the air and could become the first chapter in an ongoing debate about America’s 21st century rather than the final chapter in the nation’s bitter debate about perhaps its most divisive issue of the 20th century—Vietnam.