Presuming Hillary Clinton is not going to be the Democratic
candidate in the Fall presidential elections, the media have been
sizing up the battle between the two very different worldviews of the
men who would be president.

The New York Times helps focus attention on the critical issue of judges.

The presidential election, lawyers and scholars agree,
will offer voters a choice between two sharply different visions for
the ideological shape of the nation’s federal courts.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee,
has already asserted that if elected he would reinforce the
conservative judicial counterrevolution that began with President
Ronald Reagan by naming candidates for the bench with a reliable
conservative outlook.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has been less explicit about how he
would use the authority to nominate judicial candidates, but he would
be able to — and fellow Democrats certainly expect him to — reverse or
even undo the current conservative dominance of the courts.

Which reminds us of what is probably the single most important reason to vote, and carefully.