I’d be afraid of a McCain-Obama race. This is how I put it on my piece from the Meadowlands yesterday, for what it’s worth:

flanked by a liberal goodfella who has been in the Senate since 1963, Obama’s youth and inexperience comes off as less naivety and more . . . well, “change you can believe in.”
Maybe not me exactly. But if you’re within the sound of Barack Obama’s voice, his “change” doesn’t sound unattractive — even to a right-winger for a moment or two.
I do not mean when he talks about the danger of giving the president “the benefit of the doubt” on Iran — one of his bills against Hillary Clinton.
But take, for instance, the fact that at recent Republican debates, we’ve heard class-warfare rhetoric aimed at Mitt Romney from the party’s current frontrunner, Senator McCain: “I led for patriotism, not for profit.” By contrast, here in the Garden State, Senator Obama announces that “I love the free market” and “I love capitalism.”
Tempting.
Even when Obama talks about bringing the troops home in 2009, he speaks with admiration and respect about the members of the American military and their families. He talks about families of the fallen who “weep on his shoulder.” He talks about how even though he was against Iraq, he wouldn’t hesitate to strike if necessary. On the surface here, he doesn’t sound reckless.
There is the nebulous, feel-good rhetoric, of course: “American people are ready to rise and create a new America. . . . They are ready to create a new chapter in the American story.” He borrows the empty rhetoric that works best for the two he expects to face in what remains of the race: Like Hillary — in the famous “listening tour” of her first Senate run — he’s been listening, having conversations. And, like John McCain, he calls for “straight talk.”
But then there is also the stark reality: If — and it’s still a big if — Kennedy and Oprah power somehow push Obama over the top and it comes down to John McCain vs. Obama . . . will decades of Washington experience and “surge” leadership ever defeat this?
“If I’m running against John McCain,” Obama says, “I’m going to be making the case for the future. I want to be going forward not backward.”