McCain or Giuliani?

For me, Giuliani's easily the better choice. I must say, though, I'm beginning to watch Obama more closely and am noting that the guy is slick. His defense of McCain after McCain's own recent "wasted lives" slipup was a savvy move.

As I read the news and blog commentaries, though, one thing I note is the oft-repeated remark that it's probably better to elect someone with executive experience as opposed to merely legislative experience. The argument is that those in the legislature, the lawmakers, deal with hypotheticals, whereas it's the executives-- the presidents, the governors, etc.-- who actually have to make things work. Governor McCain and Mayor Giuliani are, by that reckoning, likely to be better at handling political messiness than, say, Senator Clinton or Senator Obama.

[NB: My buddy Mike D. wrote in to correct me: it's Senator McCain, not Governor. What the fuck was I thinking? I should have caught this but didn't. Egg on my face. Thanks, Mike.]

Of course, you can't judge candidates by a single metric, but the executive/legislative metric is an important one. Again, I find myself wishing that Mark Warner, former governor of my home state, had decided to stay in the race; he'd have provided his fellow Democrats with better options. I'm looking for a candidate who's a good financial manager as well as fairly centrist. Virginia is a conservative state, which means that Warner often found himself in the crucible of political compromise, as I'm sure Giuliani also discovered while he was a Republian mayor of majority-Dem New York City. That sort of experience counts for something, in my book.

The way I see things right now:

McCain: Hmmm...
Giuliani: Hell, yes.
Romney: No way. Something about this man scares me.
Hillary: No.
Obama: Curiouser and curiouser. I admit I'm intrigued.
Lieberman: Yes.
Edwards: Maybe.
Gore: Hmm... maybe. (But he says he's not running.)
Nader: Heh.

Most of my enthusiasm remains for Rudy, but in a later post I hope to discuss his likely weaknesses.


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