Centerfield

A Long Post About a Tough Choice

In the final days of this primary campaign, the major currents of the debate were flowing in ways that frustrate someone like me who looks for a well thought out variety of policies rather than a straight liberal or conservative ticket.

Of course, there's some inevitability to that flow away from the center in our two party system, where the base in each party exercises its greatest influence on primary day. But the flow of those currents toward the ends of the spectrum is stronger these days, I think, as we find ourselves at the tail end of two administrations that sparked the most divisive kind of controversial issues. Impeachment and preemptive war have dominated the last 10 years of American political life, drawing the deepest kind of passions from the ends of the spectrum, and inevitably fueling growth in the left and right movements.

Here in Ohio, we've had to watch both Hillary and Obama tune their political pitch to their supposed opposition to free trade. It's not enough that they oppose the war, support health care reform, oppose the Bush tax cuts, etc. They're racing to prove who can approach that 100% liberal agenda standard that core Democrats salivate over.

So the candidates help us erect this kind of alternate political universe. In the fantasy political world, Hillary and Obama are passionately committed to major reform of our free trade system. In the real political world, Obama is signaling otherwise to Canada, and Hillary's husband was the passionate free trade advocate who got NAFTA through Congress in the first place.

Neither of these candidates is John Edwards or Dennis Kucinish, who would actually have gone after NAFTA. In the real world, Americans will have to find more ways to compete in a tough world market. That's the real-world issue, but we're getting all hot-and-bothered about the fantasy issue.

I've had to watch McCain criticize his opponents for even the hint of a consideration of timetables when it comes to Iraq, even as our current Iraq policy leans too heavily on the ongoing sacrifice of our men and women overseas. I suspect McCain sees rather clearly that a major shakeup is needed in Iraq policy, but he can't let anyone talk about it. His political fortunes depend heavily on his ability to look like the toughest candidate on Iraq, to protect him from the backlash of his other less orthodox policies. So politics, in this current fantasy world, requires a heaping helping of unreality.

In addition to the fanciful major currents of the debate, however, we have some minor currents and hints that suggest these candidates will take us somewhere else.

The minor current is Obama's people talking to the Canadians about free trade, which then requires denials in the strongest language, but which reflects the status quo, and probable future, in U.S.-Canadian relations.

Another minor current was suggested by Ohio Governor Ted Strickland on CNN yesterday evening, when he emphasized Hillary's interest in a responsible Iraq policy not based entirely on withdrawal.

I heard a few other minor currents a week ago in an interview with John McCain, when he talked about the real dangers of climate change and his view that technology will be the key path to significant progress in this area. I've long believed it unlikely that we would convince developing nations like China and India to limit their current industrialization paths. That means we need new, efficient, clean technologies if we want to significantly alter the overall global picture in greenhouse emissions. It needs to be cost-effective worldwide or it will never be adopted by enough countries to matter.

I wonder if I may have heard one of these minor currents, too, in the growing issue over whether the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman was improperly influenced by Bush administration political operatives. One of the most vocal accusers in the 60 Minutes piece that ran last Sunday was none other than Grant Woods, former Arizona Attorney general, co-chair of the McCain for President leadership committee, and godfather to one of McCain's children. Could some healthy accounting for the overreach of politics in the Bush years be in the offing in a McCain presidency?

The number of minor currents trickling away from the mighty streams flowing left and right has given me some measure of hope lately. I could make a legitimate case for any of the three remaining contenders, which is why I didn't make up my mind until I was in the shower this morning. Shampooing your hair and puzzling over the future of our nation can go together, if need be.

The choice came down to a rough accounting of what these minor currents have been for the three candidates -- the places where they've thoughtfully diverged from orthodoxy -- the things they don't talk about much because the red-faced blow-hards in the two parties can't handle it. My very rough, incomplete accounting includes:

• Obama's controversial foreign policy speech from last August, which I only bothered to read when it became the subject of some heated exchanges, and which suggests a more balanced and thoughtful approach to the world than I had attributed to him. I didn't know, for example, that Obama contemplates keeping a security force in Iraq for the long term for counter-terror operations.
• McCain's frank, and somewhat brave, discussion of climate change, even very recently.
• McCain's past record of unorthodox policies on immigration, the environment, fiscal policy, campaign finance reform, and torture.
• Hillary's appearances and speeches early in the primary cycle, which suggested a more moderate foreign policy than the one she now seems to advocate.

I also thought about some of the key negatives for these candidates, especially:

• Obama's inexperience.
• Hillary's dicey campaign tactics.
• McCain's over-coziness with the current administration on foreign policy, and more generally with the neoconservative movement.

On the whole, I think it's a very close call. And it all feels quite a bit more comfortable to me, because I think some of the minor currents listed above are real. I can actually picture any of these three candidates becoming a better-than-average president. I also recognize, however, that the left and right movements at the base of both parties are influential enough to push these guys away from some of their potential bold stands. McCain may not "clean house" ethically with quite the fervor he would when he sees the possibility of fracturing his party in the bargain.

I kind of think the raw materials of a successful presidency are there for us. We have three people who can lead, and we know at this point that one of them will be president. It's up to us, in the center, to offer some kind of counter-weight to the forces that will line up to push these guys away from bold, unorthodox leadership.

My choice this morning? McCain. I see him as a little more vocal in his unorthodoxy than the other two, and I think his overall record is somewhat closer to the political center. All three of these folks will compromise with the base in their party for political expediency, but I see McCain as hanging a little tougher, perhaps, in those inevitable struggles to come.