Looking ahead

Hillary Clinton lost big in North Carolina and barely squeaked by in Indiana. She may not be willing to concede yet, but it's obvious to almost everyone else that she is not going to be the Democratic nominee for president.
That means it's time for us to start looking ahead to the fall and studying the contours of a Barack Obama-John McCain race. If we let them define the contest, all we'll hear in the coming months will be "hope" and "change" from the "new kind of politician" and "conservative values" from the "principled maverick."
We need to do a little digging and understand them better. What grasp do they have of the complicated issues facing America and the world? What are each man's core principles? What would the nation look like after four years under one of them?
McCain has just shown us one important issue by giving a speech on what kind of federal judges he would appoint. He would look for jurists who believe "there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power" and who are "faithful in all things to the Constitution of the United States. By way of example, he said he would look for people like Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., Justice Samuel A. Alito and the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
We know that's not the kind of justices Obama would seek, since he voted against Roberts and Alito both. Explaining his Roberts vote, he once said a justice should share "one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broadest perspectives on how the world works and the depth and breadth of one's empathy."
The next president is likely to have the chance to appoint several justices, and the effect they have on America will last a lot longer than four years.