Since we all want to get back to issues, the battle between Boeing and Airbus over the $40 billion tanker deal highlights the differences between the two candidates' economic philosophies and how they're applied in real world circumstances:

Democrat Barack Obama's political supporters in Congress and in labor unions, and the broad Democratic Party agenda, tend to favor the Boeing airplane, built by union workers in Washington state.

The Republican Party's free-market agenda would tend to be neutral on the choice of companies, but Republican John McCain has clashed with Boeing in the past over the tanker. And McCain's Southern political supporters favor the Airbus jet, with parts sent from Europe for assembly in Mobile, Ala.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute who is familiar with the politics of military procurement, sees two starkly different agendas.

"Obama is an economic nationalist," Thompson. "For him, the tanker connects with much broader agenda items: the future of American industry, the trade balance, sending production offshore.

"Sen. Obama will look at where these two planes originate, where they are being built, and who is building them, and probably decide he prefers the Boeing tanker."

Boeing supporters Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Norm Dicks, both Washington state Democrats, backed that assessment of where Obama likely would fall. [snip]

In 2002, as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain objected to the original tanker deal because it was awarded without competition as a congressional earmark.

That deal unraveled after a procurement scandal that sent Boeing Chief Financial Officer Mike Sears to prison.

In 2006, with the Airbus A330 competing against the Boeing 767, McCain intervened again.

An Air Force requirement to consider allegations in the Boeing/Airbus trade dispute over illegal subsidies would effectively have excluded the Airbus plane in advance. McCain wrote to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, asking him to remove the requirement to ensure a fair competition.

"His agenda is good government," Thompson said. "We've had 30 years now of the Republicans pushing an agenda of free trade, deregulation and market forces. He's going to look at this program a good deal differently than a Democratic president."

A staffer close to McCain who has worked closely on the tanker said McCain does not favor either airplane.

"[Sen. McCain's] only agenda is that the competition produces the best product for men and women in uniform at the best price for the taxpayer," the staff member said.