Andrew Sullivan compares and contrasts Obama and McCain in his most recent piece for The Sunday Times:
Obama is politically liberal and temperamentally conservative; McCain is temperamentally liberal and politically unpredictable. Obama is cerebral; McCain is emotional. Obama is reserved, sometimes aloof; McCain is a social gadfly and seemingly terrified of being left alone and silent. Obama wins press adoration but is not close to journalists; McCain is personal friends with hacks of all sorts. Obama makes plans and executes them with sometimes chilling discipline; McCain veers from one passion to another, winging it – and somehow pulling it off…
The difficult question Americans have to ask themselves is not who is the right man – it is who is right for now. After 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, as Russia reasserts itself, as Iran closes in on a nuclear bomb, as Pakistan threatens to crack apart and as the US economy teeters on crisis, which of these two men has the qualities needed to succeed?
If you believe the problem with America’s 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’s low tax rates – are necessary for growth, McCain is the obvious choice.