The Battle Begins--McCain vs. Obama.

The Weekly Standard | Frontpagemagazine ^ | February 13, 2008 | Stephen F. Hayes

[SJackson]

JOHN MCCAIN AND Barack Obama swept the Chesapeake Primaries, as expected. With his victories last night, McCain further solidified his status as the almost-certain nominee of his party. Obama, meanwhile, has taken a lead among delegates to the Democratic convention and is now arguably the frontrunner.

With the outcomes last night widely expected, aides to both Obama and McCain had plenty of time to craft victory speeches that would reflect their candidate's thinking on the state of the race. And with varying degrees of intensity, both men used that freedom to begin to frame a McCain-versus-Obama general election contest, something that is starting to look more likely than not. If that happens, viewers watching the speeches tonight saw a preview of the coming debate.

McCain, for his part, borrowed extensively from Hillary Clinton's dualist critique of Barack Obama: Hope is no substitute for action, and experience matters.

[Edit35]

Romney’s gone. Get over it.

Can't yet. Still too raw.

Every time I contemplate enduring the next eight months of McCain's same old WashingtonDC boring blather, compounded by having to watch the energetic locomotive (albeit empty) of Bombo-Bracka .... I just wanna spit at the thought of what could've been.

[Greg F]

I can understand your feelings. This primary season has been a roller-coaster. I was and am an opponent of Romney; I don’t believe he is the man to unite the Republican party. That said, I’ve had candidates I supported lose bitter fights many times and it does take a while to readjust and see things as they are rather than as we imagine they should have been.

[SamAdams76]

I don’t know what the GOP fascination is with old, tired career politicians but it’s saddening to see. They have the mentality of “give the old guy his turn.” Bob Dole, Gerry Ford, George Bush Sr., Richard Nixon, etc., etc. Even Ronald Reagan surrounded himself with these types. Compared to Obama, McCain is going to look like Leonid Breshnev.

[rob777]

It looks like McCain is getting ready to challange Obama on who is the better example of hope:

“Hope, my friends, is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men’s hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience. And I stood astonished at the resilience of their hope in the darkest of hours because it did not reside in an exaggerated belief in their individual strength, but in the support of their comrades, and their faith in their country. My hope for our country resides in my faith in the American character, the character which proudly defends the right to think and do for ourselves, but perceives self-interest in accord with a kinship of ideals, which, when called upon, Americans will defend with their very lives.

To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude.

When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest ambition, and that all glory was self-glory. My parents tried to teach me otherwise, as did the Naval Academy. But I didn’t understand the lesson until later in life, when I confronted challenges I never expected to face.

In that confrontation I discovered that I was dependent on others to a greater extent than I had ever realized, but that neither they nor the cause we served made any claims on my identity. On the contrary, I discovered that nothing is more liberating in life than to fight for a cause that encompasses you, but is not defined by your existence alone. And that has made all the difference, my friends, all the difference in the world.”