DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

Three years ago I was in an airport in Texas on my way to Nevada after attending the college graduation of an adored small person in my life when I encountered and had a conversation with Karl Rove, the one time Nevadan and architect of vitriolic, meanspirited politics.

Last week I was in an airport in Texas on my way to Nevada after attending the high school graduation of another adored small person when I spotted the Economist magazine in a newsstand. On the cover was an illustration of John McCain and Barack Obama. The headline read, "America at its best."

Who woulda thunk it? After eight years of bitter, lowest-common-denominator Republican presidential politics that appealed to all our worst instincts, preceded by eight years of cynical, corporate-friendly, lowest-common-denominator Democratic presidential politics, we get two candidates for president who are good guys -- decent, principled, and fairly normal. When was the last time THAT happened?

What do you suppose they'll look like to us by the first week in November?

We've seen it before -- Barry Goldwater was turned from a dynamic, principled conservative into a satanic figure by Democratic operatives. Michael Dukakis was converted from a conservative Democratic governor into a soft-on-crime traitor by a Bush campaign that Newsweek described as the political equivalent of toxic waste dumping.

McCain and Obama are now being teed up for the same treatment.

The Democrats were off first, portraying John McCain as recycled George Bush. The relentless use of that line of argument at Nevada's Democratic state convention by public officials who like to think of themselves as principled was dismaying. But that claim against McCain is preposterous. For years he has been every Democrat's favorite Republican, opposing Bush on one issue after another -- torture and detainees, campaign finance reform, climate control.

Yes, they agree on other issues, but that is not an indictable offense, particularly because there is a difference in Bush and McCain's approach to issues, even on the issues where they agree. For instance, Bush wants to stay in Iraq for dogmatic reasons and from a reluctance to admit error. McCain wants to stay in Iraq because he believes the strategy may work. Which of them is more likely to have an open mind on the issue?

If John McCain is the reincarnation of George Bush, why did John Kerry want him as a running mate four years ago? Why did Harry Reid try to convince McCain to switch parties? And if a supposed third term for George Bush is so objectionable to Democrats, why did they support what Michael Moore justifiably called Bill Clinton's continuation of the Reagan administration?

Republican groups already, in the North Carolina primary, have begun test marketing anti-Obama television spots that identify him with the pastor he repudiated. Other bottom dwellers like to emphasize his middle name, Hussein.

Obama's nomination frees the Democratic Party from Clintonism at the same time that McCain has won the Republican nomination without owing anything to the evangelical right. This is a golden opportunity to liberate the political system, end gridlock and change the meanspirited tone of U.S. politics. But it will require a certain maturity and perception from voters. When the independent political action committees start unloading on the candidates with venomous and repulsive 30-second spots, voters need to see through them.

We don't get a chance like this every day, of returning civility to our politics. It will require voters on both sides to concede good will and good intentions to the other side. If we let ourselves be manipulated again by the worst our politics offers, we will pay the price for years, maybe decades. Sharp political conflict serves a purpose, but the vitriol we have seen passing for debate does not.

These two leaders would like to get us back to the days when Republicans and Democrats in Congress had working relationships, when presidents and Congresses of opposing parties worked together. Their supporters are busily planning campaigns that will prevent that from coming to pass by polarizing the political system again and sending to Congress two angry, vengeful political parties bent on screwing us all.

Today we have a choice of greater goods. The forces of political darkness are about to try to turn them into lesser evils.