Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is the best candidate for president in 2008.He has numerous advantages over the candidates of the last decade, including a heroic military service record and broad, bipartisan appeal. While he currently trails in the polls behind former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani, he has the appeal, experience and charisma to lead the country.

McCain is a decorated war veteran and a hero of the Vietnam War. If he is elected, we could finally break from the relative cop-outs of President George W, Bush and former President Bill Clinton. When offered a pardon early on, McCain refused and spent five more years in a Vietnamese prison (1967-1973). A man who refused to be repatriated to America simply because he was the son of an admiral defies moral reproach. He is currently one of only four Vietnam veterans in the Senate.

McCain’s Senate career has earned him a reputation as a bipartisan negotiator who is not always willing to tow the party line. Though consistently a hawk on foreign policy and an opponent of abortion, he has opposed Bush on global warming and gay marriage. He believes in the urgency of global warming and voted against both the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have banned gay marriage by constitutional amendment, and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

He has argued consistently for reducing the size of the government deficit rather than expanding it as Bush has done. He has also consistently opposed the administration’s policies on torture – something McCain experienced himself – and worked to reform the military’s manuals on the subject. These efforts distance McCain from the majority of Republican senators who have been willing to accept whatever agenda Bush proposes. Through his efforts, he has gained so much appeal that the New York Times reported that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., asked McCain to be his running mate in 2004.

McCain lost the 2000 primary to Bush, but this was in a time fundamentally different from 2008.

By the time the election rolls around next year, the voting public will likely become more unhappy with the far-right president currently in office. McCain can use his bipartisan appeal to his advantage over Republican primary voters who, after the midterm elections, will see the need for change. In 2008, religious conservatives will not hold the sway they did, and this will give McCain the edge he needs to take the Republican nomination. McCain is also the most recognizable of the current Republican candidates and has an edge over the relatively unknown Republican challengers.

Personally, I cannot think of a man better for the White House than one who has served five years in a Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, adopted a Bangladeshi orphan and stood in principled opposition to the excesses of the current administration.

McCain’s election would give the United States a sorely needed turn back to the center and away from the rabid partisan politics that have reigned since Clinton took office. It is especially important that moderate Republicans turn out to vote in the primaries.

To let the party choose another candidate affiliated with the far-right religious wing of the party would be disastrous.

Tyler Fultz is a senior history and political science major from Indianapolis.