The dawn of new world order

Written By DNA Web Team | Updated:

Separated by a generation and by one's legendary military experience, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama offer voters contrasting worldviews

With the Bush administration seen as a massive failure, both Obama and McCain are counting on their policies — particularly foreign affairs and economy — to take them to the White House. No matter who wins, the new 'most powerful man' is bound to redraw global geopolitics in his own image

Separated by a generation and by one's legendary military experience, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama offer voters contrasting worldviews, suggesting that they'd pursue different foreign policies as president. Both Obama and McCain ask their audiences to serve a cause greater than self-interest. Both offer a politics that is grand and inspiring.

But they are very different men. Their policies obviously conflict, but their skills, world views and moral philosophies set them apart, too. One man celebrates communitarian virtues like unity, the other classical virtues like honour. Obama's great skill is his ability to perceive and forge bonds with other people. Everybody who's dealt with him has a story about a time when they felt Obama profoundly listened to them and understood them.

Obama emphasises the connections between people, the networks and the webs of influence. These sorts of links are invisible to some of his rivals, but Obama is a communitarian. He believes you can only make profound political changes if you first change the spirit of the community.

In his speeches, he says that if one person stands up, then another will stand up and another and another and you'll get a nation standing up.

The key word in any Obama speech is "you." Other politicians talk about what they will do if elected. Obama talks about what you can do if you join together. Like a community organiser on a national scale, he is trying to move people beyond their cynicism, make them believe in themselves, mobilise their common energies.

His weakness is that he never breaks from his own group. In policy terms, he is an orthodox liberal. He never tells audiences anything that might make them uncomfortable. In the Senate, he didn't join the Gang of 14, which created a bipartisan consensus on judges, because it would have meant deviating from liberal orthodoxy and coming to the centre.

John McCain is very different. He is moved by examples of heroism and individual excellence. His books are about character and patriotism, not networks or community-building. He is not a loner (in fact, he dislikes being alone), but whether he is a prisoner of war or a senator, he is acutely aware of how corrupt social pressures encroach on individual integrity. While Obama seeks solidarity with groups, McCain resists conformity. He fights fiercely, though not always successfully, against political pressures in order to remain honest, brave and forthright.

Obama seeks solidarity with groups, McCain resists conformity. He fights fiercely, though not always successfully, against political pressures in order to remain honest, brave and forthright.

In the Senate, McCain sits in the back of the Republican policy lunches cracking jokes at the hired spin-meisters. He is allergic to blind party discipline and builds radically different coalitions depending on his views on each issue - global warming, campaign finance, spending, the war. He is most offended by dishonour. He'll be sitting in his Senate office and he'll read about some act of selfishness - a corrupt Pentagon contract, Jack Abramoff's scandals - and he'll spend the next several months punishing wrongdoing.

McCain's campaign events are unpredictable. At Obama events, the candidate gives a moving speech while the crowd rises deliriously as one. McCain holds town meetings. People challenge him, sometimes angrily. And if they oppose him, McCain will come back to them two or three times so that there can be an honest exchange of views. Some politicians try to persuade their audience that they agree with them. McCain welcomes disagreement and talks about it.

McCain's weakness is that he flies by the seat of his pants. If elected, he will have to live in the cocoon of the White House and build an organised and predictable administration. As a pilot, he got used to taking off from aircraft carriers. But as president, he'll be the guy steering the aircraft carrier.

The central issue in this election is the crisis of leadership. American voters are reacting against partisan gridlock. Obama and McCain both offer ways to end this gridlock. Obama wants US to rise above it by rediscovering our commonalities. McCain hopes smash it with fierce honesty and independent action.

Dealing with rogue regimes
Obama is more inclined to talk with U.S. adversaries. In July 2007, during the Democratic primaries, he said he'd be willing to meet in his first year in office, without precondition, with leaders such as Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Obama's since backed off slightly, saying that such diplomacy would need careful preparation. In his first debate with McCain, however, he criticised Bush's refusal to talk to enemies, saying "this notion (that) by not talking to people we are punishing them has not worked."

McCain has ridiculed the idea of negotiating with leaders such as Ahmadinejad, Chavez or Cuba's Raul Castro. Unlike Obama, he supported Bush's invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, and in years past he's suggested using military force to deal with nuclear-weapons programs in Iran and North Korea.

A senior official in past Republican administrations, asked whether he thought that McCain was too quick to consider using military force, replied simply: "Yes." The former official requested anonymity to speak more frankly.

Next Monday, watch out for our in-depth coverage of how each candidate’s win will affect India, Pakistan and the region