American Presidential elections are about the future, and not the past. It's for that reason that the contrast between the junior senator from Illinois and the senior senator from Arizona is so fascinating.

The Republican National Committee is planning a $19.5 million advertising campaign to portray Mr. Obama, 46, as out of touch with the country and too inexperienced to be commander in chief, seeking to put him on the defensive before he can use his financial advantage against Mr. McCain, 71, party officials said. "In 1984, Ronald Reagan said, ‘I’m not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience,’ " said Frank Donatelli, the deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee. "Well, we are going to exploit Obama’s youth and inexperience." On the Democratic side, Mr. Obama’s aides this week put finishing touches on advertisements intended to tether Mr. McCain to Mr. Bush and chip away at his image as a maverick, an identity that the aides said they found remained strong with voters. "By November, every voter will know that McCain is offering a third Bush term," said Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe.

It isn't the age stuff (McCain at 72 would be the oldest President ever inaugurated, and as he put it himself, he's a man of "the twentieth century, my century"; Obama would be a year older than Bill Clinton was when Clinton took office.) It isn't character (McCain made it to the top the Republican way: he cheated on his first wife and married a Sugar Momma, who still finances his political ambitions; see McCain campaign violates own travel policy and the issue of Cindy McCain's tax returns.) No, it's none of that. It's the important stuff, issues in the real world that affect all of us. As David Gergen put it:

"The next president will inherit the most difficult agenda since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt," he warned. Gergen stressed that a continuation of current policies would likely result in the decline of America while Japan, China and India may become superpowers within the next few decades. Whether the U.S. will remain one is questionable, he said, especially if our policies remain static. According to Gergen, America not only needs to change its policies, but revolutionize them. In addition, problems including two extensive wars, the education system and job growth require solving, not "sugar-coating."

It is in this regard that the contrast is so striking. So, let's look at the three issues Americans have identified as "most important" to them.

Iraq (statements from Foreign Affairs):

Obama:

To renew American leadership in the world, we must first bring the Iraq war to a responsible end and refocus our attention on the broader Middle East. Iraq was a diversion from the fight against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11, and incompetent prosecution of the war by America's civilian leaders compounded the strategic blunder of choosing to wage it in the first place. We have now lost over 3,300 American lives, and thousands more suffer wounds both seen and unseen.

McCain:

Whether success grows closer or more distant over the coming months, it is clear that Iraq will be a central issue for the next U.S. president. Democratic candidates have promised to withdraw U.S. troops and "end the war" by fiat, regardless of the consequences. To make such decisions based on the political winds at home, rather than on the realities in the theater, is to court disaster. The war in Iraq cannot be wished away, and it is a miscalculation of historic magnitude to believe that the consequences of failure will be limited to one administration or one party. This is an American war, and its outcome will touch every one of our citizens for years to come. That is why I support our continuing efforts to win in Iraq. It is also why I oppose a preemptive withdrawal strategy that has no Plan B for the aftermath of its inevitable failure and the greater problems that would ensue.

So who's right? Hint: not John McCain. Writing this month in Foreign Affairs, Steven Simon notes in The Price of the Surge (bolded mine):

Unfortunately, such claims misconstrue the causes of the recent fall in violence and, more important, ignore a fatal flaw in the strategy. The surge has changed the situation not by itself but only in conjunction with several other developments: the grim successes of ethnic cleansing, the tactical quiescence of the Shiite militias, and a series of deals between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes that constitute a new bottom-up approach to pacifying Iraq. The problem is that this strategy to reduce violence is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state. If anything, it has made such an outcome less likely, by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni Arab tribes and pitting them against the central government and against one another. In other words, the recent short-term gains have come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq. Despite the current lull in violence, Washington needs to shift from a unilateral bottom-up surge strategy to a policy that promotes, rather than undermines, Iraq's cohesion. That means establishing an effective multilateral process to spur top-down political reconciliation among the major Iraqi factions. And that, in turn, means stating firmly and clearly that most U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Iraq within two or three years. Otherwise, a strategy adopted for near-term advantage by a frustrated administration will only increase the likelihood of long-term debacle.

Of course, McCain (the so-called military expert) hasn't been pinned down for a response about this, which qualifies as an example of Gergen's "sugar coating":

"So the Pentagon would maintain a team of 'military analysts' who reliably 'carry their water' -- yet who were presented as independent analysts by the television and cable networks. By feeding only those pro-Government sources key information and giving them access -- even before responding to the press -- only those handpicked analysts would be valuable to the networks, and that, in turn, would ensure that only pro-Government sources were heard from.

Hmmm... well, let's turn to another topic of import: health reform.