“Faint Praise”

Reihan further explains his endorsement of McCain:

Is McCain, as the subhed has it, the “best man” to unite America? Well, I think he’d have to be. Let me stress that “uniting America” isn’t necessarily the highest priority of the next president — perhaps Barack Obama would not “unite with” about 35 percent of the country that is bitterly opposed to his agenda, and I think that’s fair nough. But McCain would, in my view, be forced to unite America because he became the standard-bearer of a minority faction in our politics. How could McCain govern without engaging in really radical outreach to Democrats and independents?

Writing the op-ed was tough. As I’ve noted to you guys, I have slightly odd views about this election. I think that partisan intensity matters, and that shared ownership of American foreign policy matters: both of these things suggest that an Obama victory would be a good thing, though I disagree with Obama on many issues. That said, independent of the campaign (absurd, I know), I think that McCain would be a solid president, and that he’d have an opportunity to reframe our politics in a good and constructive way. If this sounds like faint praise, it is.

Overarchingly, I think both candidates are hilariously unprepared for the nature and scale of the challenges they’re likely to face. Mitt Romney has a far wider range of relevant domestic experience than either of them. That’s not to say he’d necessarily make a better president — he has character flaws, lest we forget. But boy, I haven’t been as encouraged as many of my friends about these guys.