ohn McCain What he’s running on: The Long War

Best idea: The surge. When he says he supported it all along—he did. When he says it’s working—it is. Violence in Iraq is down by more than half, and three quarters of Baghdad’s neighborhoods are now secure. Such gains are fragile and political reconciliation remains elusive. But whether it was experience, foresight, or luck, McCain had it mostly right on this issue.

Worst idea: Staying 100 years in Iraq. Baghdad is a far cry from Heidelberg or Seoul. Whether or not the United States is still taking casualties in 2009, it won’t be long before U.S. troops overstay their welcome.

Where the heck is he on … North Korea? In 2000, the Arizona senator—a fiery critic of Bill Clinton’s diplomatic approach to Pyongyang—was calling for the “rollback” of the North Korean regime. But he has been awfully quiet about the Bush administration’s remarkably Clintonian nuclear bargaining, and devoted just 70 words to North Korea in a recent 5,305-word opus in Foreign Affairs.