Analysis: McCain, Obama polar opposites

Liz Sidoti

WASHINGTON — Heartily sick of the status quo, Americans will choose between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama this fall, two men who campaign as bipartisan reformers yet are polar opposites on virtually everything else, from ideology and biography to appearance and experience.

Over the next five months, a fragile economy and an ongoing Iraq war, as well as matters of age and race, will shape the monumental contest to succeed President Bush and become the 44th president.

McCain — 71, white and a veteran of Congress who vows never to surrender to al-Qaida — would be the oldest first-term president ever elected.

Obama — 46, black and a Senate newcomer who pledges to end the Iraq war — would be the first minority to achieve the White House.

“No matter who wins this election, the direction of this country is going to change dramatically,” McCain said Tuesday in New Orleans. “But, the choice is between the right change and the wrong change; between going forward and going backward.”

Obama countered in St. Paul, Minn.: “There are many words to describe John McCain’s attempt to pass off his embrace of George Bush’s policies as bipartisan and new. But change is not one of them.”

Among the biggest questions to be answered by Nov. 4:

•    Will McCain be able to overcome the country’s intense desire for change by separating himself from the unpopular Bush while sticking close on issues of war and taxes?

•    Will Obama be able to overcome the country’s unsavory history of slavery and lingering bigotry that deeply divides the public to be elected the first black president?

It takes 270 electoral votes to win the White House, and competition likely will be the most fierce in some 14 battleground states. Both candidates will fight to defend states their parties won four years ago. McCain also will make a play for Democratic-held states in the Great Lakes region, while Obama hopes to crack the GOP bastion of the South.

The campaign is the first in half a century in which neither a sitting president nor a vice president is running for the highest office, and the first since 1960 in which a senator will assume the White House. McCain, a four-term Arizona senator, is a longtime Republican Party agitator. Obama, the first-term Illinois senator, is the Democratic Party’s newfound star.

By just about every measure, the gulf between the two is wide.

Philosophically, the country will get either one extreme or the other in the conservative McCain or the liberal Obama.

An Associated Press-Yahoo News poll from April found that just over a third of all people call themselves conservative, while just under a quarter say they are liberal. They rest describe themselves as moderate.

That means voters who aren’t at the extremes of the political spectrum likely will be the deciding force. Thus, both candidates already have started to reach toward the middle after primary fights in which both played to their respective political bases.

Even so, the record is clear.

In line with conservative orthodoxy, McCain is a defense hawk who supports the troop-increase strategy in Iraq and opposes a quick pullout. He also favors tougher sanctions against Iran. He backs free trade and the extension of the Bush tax cuts that are the cornerstone of the current economic policy. He opposes abortion rights, and he favors school choice. He is a longtime advocate of fiscal restraint and a crusader against wasteful government spending. He takes a free-market approach to health care.