"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.