Foreign Policies Update

Yesterday was very exciting for me. I received a package from home (it is very very rare for me to get mail) that included the newest Foreign Affairs. Even more exciting was the fact that the new issue contains the foreign policy essays of Hillary Clinton and John McCain. After reading them both, here's my analysis:

Clinton - For the vast majority of her writing, I was with her. She wrote to an educated audience and had good, solid things to say and suggest. Surprisingly, she was not overly bogged down by bashing the Bush administration. Unfortunately, she did not touch on humanitarian reform as other candidates have so effectively. Overall, I found that I liked what she said, didn't find anything to strongly disagree with, and was left wanting on a couple issues.

McCain - His essay is well-written but positively against what I'm interested in. It may surprise McCain to learn that the military is not the answer to everything, and that training civil servants side-by-side with the military is NOT A GOOD IDEA!!!!! The entire essay was far too militaristic for my tastes, although he managed to avoid almost all of the fear-mongering that Giuliani and Romney used. I was not offended by his essay, I simply disagree with almost everything he says.

So here are the grades so far:
Edwards - A
Clinton - A-
Romney - B+
McCain - B-
Giuliani - D+
Obama - D-

If the vote were today, my candidate would be Hillary Clinton.

She did not have the best essay, but it was good enough to make me like her. Combined with her experience, demeanor, and domestic politics, she's the clear leader. Edwards and Romney lost on the basis of domestic politics. The rest have proven their inability to think rationally or present clear, intelligent policies.