Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
Michael Bloomberg should've been an eye doctor.
He's helping a lot of people see more clearly today.
Certainly the presidential race may become clear on Tuesday, if Hillary Clinton loses to Barack Obama in Texas and Ohio and drops out. But the race has already been given great clarity by the announcement that New York Mayor Bloomberg won't be an independent candidate for the White House.
Bloomberg has the wherewithal of a Ross Perot without the flights of fancy, shall we say. And Bloomberg's candidacy, while intriguing, would have muddled the choices immensely.
Without him in it, and absent some other attractive independent candidate, the choice between the Republican and Democratic candidates will be stark.
Obama, the likely Democratic nominee at this point, talks about unity and reaching across party and ideological lines. And he seems to mean it, and might even do it if elected.
But if the past is prologue, he might not: His record is ultra-liberal -- more to the left of even Ted Kennedy -- and his record of bipartisanship is almost nil in his short time in politics.
That stands in deep contrast to John McCain's record, which is so bipartisan that he has alienated much of the Republican base.
More importantly, though, Obama and McCain would differ sharply on the danger from al-Qaida and what to do about it, including when and how to withdraw from Iraq.
In fact, the two candidates couldn't be further apart on the very premise of the Iraq War. Obama utterly rejects it, while McCain supports the war and the surge and would continue the policy of staying on the offense against terrorism.
The success of the surge, if it continues, will paint Obama into a bit of a corner -- preaching a defeatist message back home while the troops achieve victory. He'll be in the uncomfortable position of squaring that position with the facts.
As important as all these differences will be the candidates' philosophical approaches to government.
Conservatives bitterly recall McCain's teaming up with Democrat Russ Feingold -- the Wisconsin senator whom few politicians can pass on the left -- to restrict political spending. Or his teaming up with Kennedy on amnesty for illegal aliens. But McCain does have a lifetime rating of over 82 from the American Conservative Union.
Obama's rating is 8.
The other night at the Democratic debate, Obama said oil companies won't give up their profits easily. What? What makes him think the government has a right to make companies "give up" their profits in any manner?
Mrs. Clinton, too, talks about what she -- she! -- will do with those profits. How is that any different from Hugo Chavez, who is for all practical purposes a dictator?
Regardless of who the Democratic nominee is, the choice will be clear:
Either we will choose more government in our lives or less.
