During its recent three-day retreat in Los Angeles, the Republican National Committee (RNC) focused its discussions mainly on the most likely contenders for the presidency, Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Barack Obama. Several RNC luminaries, such as chairman Robert Duncan and former Bush adviser Karl Rove, repeatedly argued, just like Hillary Clinton, that Obama’s biggest liability was his “inexperience.”
One has to ask, however, what kind of experience it is that Obama is
lacking. Is it a disadvantage for the junior senator from Illinois that he is 24 years younger than the senior senator from Arizona? Yet, do Obama’s impressive educational credentials not also count as a significant prerequisite for the presidency?
McCain graduated from the Naval Academy, served 23 years as a naval aviator, including five harrowing years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, two terms as U.S. Representative, and 22 years as U.S. Senator. Obama has no military experience, but he graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, then taught law at the University of Chicago, organized job training programs, and conducted voter registration drives, before he was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 and to the U.S. Senate in 2004. His keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and his biography, “Dreams of My Father,” helped lift him to national prominence.
McCain was born in Panama as a son of a naval officer. Obama was born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and an American mother, both then college students. The two contenders have traveled widely outside the United States, but Obama’s family background gave him a very special insight into the problems of racial and ethnic minorities.
From age six to ten, young Barack grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia, with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents until his graduation in 1979. He later observed: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered--to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect--became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."
McCain’s traumatic encounters during the U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia apparently shaped his militant views of America’s role in the world, views that strongly differ from Obama’s. Much like President Bush, McCain continues to insist that Iraq is the central front in the global war on terror. Undeterred by the widespread disapproval of President Musharraf’s authoritarian and ineffective rule in Pakistan, McCain wrote in Foreign Affairs: "We must continue to work with President Pervez Musharraf to dismantle the cells and camps that the Taliban and al Qaeda maintain in his country." McCain proposed a "League of Democracies" to bypass the United Nations if it resists U.S. interventions in ”failed states.”
In stark contrast to McCain, Obama has been consistently opposing the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He advocates a regional conference involving Syria and Iran, for the purpose of reaching a comprehensive peace settlement in the Middle East. He partnered with Republican Senator Richard Lugar in efforts to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Obama also seeks significant changes in the unproductive U.S. policy toward Cuba and calls for U.S. leadership in dealing with global climate change.
Both senators recognize that the biggest challenges facing the United States today are global, such as the clashes with Islamic radicalism, the conflicts in the Middle East, and friction over trade with the European Union, China, and Latin America. True to his background as a fighting man, McCain strongly believes--like President Bush--that resistance to American hegemony over the rest of the world ultimately must be subdued with military and economic power. Rejecting McCain’s approach to U.S. foreign policy, Obama has consistently advocated multilateral diplomacy over unilateral resort to coercion, be it military or economic.
Different life experiences, different policy options. Which ones are needed for America’s next president?