McCain & Bush

Both men oppose use of federal money for abortions, including aid to groups that help women obtain them. Both support the ban on Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003 and parental notification for minors.

Diplomacy with Iran and Syria

Like the president, McCain has ruled out direct talks with Iran and Syria for now. McCain supported Bush when he likened those who would negotiate with “terrorists and radicals” to appeasers of the Nazis, a remark widely interpreted as a rebuke to Barack Obama.

Immigration

McCain supported a 2007 bill, strongly backed by Bush, that called for establishing a guest-worker programme and setting up a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. He sponsored a similar bill in 2006 but this year he said he would not vote for his own proposal now. “Only after we achieved widespread consensus that our borders are secure, would we address other aspects of the problem in a way that defends the rule of law,” he said in February.

Iraq

McCain supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 but strongly criticised the Bush administration’s handling of the war in the first four years. He was a vocal advocate of the troop-increase strategy, eventually adopted by the president, and has supported Bush in resisting calls for a withdrawal timetable.

Guantanamo detainees

McCain was a key backer of the 2006 legislation that allowed detainees to be tried in military courts and abolished habeas corpus rights for detainees labeled “enemy combatants” by the administration. He would close the Guantanamo prison and move prisoners to a maximum-security military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Same-sex marriage

Bush supported a constitutional amendment to ban such marriages, but McCain voted against it, saying states should enact such bans. He said he would consider a constitutional ban if “a higher court says that my state or another state has to recognise” same-sex marriages.

Taxes

McCain would make permanent the large Bush tax cuts he opposed in 2001 and 2003. He has also proposed four new tax cuts of his own.

Where They Mostly disAgree

Climate change

Unlike Bush, McCain supports a cap-and- trade programme that would set a national ceiling on carbon emissions. Although critical of the Bush administration’s lack of initiatives on the climate, McCain has said that “America did the right thing by not joining the Kyoto Treaty” and that any such global accord should include China and India, an argument used by Bush.

Energy and oil

McCain has called for a “great national campaign to put us on a course to energy independence,” adding that the next president must be willing to “break completely” with the energy policies of previous administrations.

Tax breaks

Bush opposes a windfall profits tax on oil companies. McCain has voted against similar taxes in the past, but this month he said he was “angry at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they’ve made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy.”

Federal spending

McCain has sought to emphasise his differences with Bush by portraying himself as a stronger opponent of pork-barrel projects and other wasteful spending. He says he would not sign any earmarked projects into law and would cut financing for ineffective programs, including Amtrak. Bush has so far allowed earmarks in spending bills, but signed an executive order this year directing federal agencies to ignore earmarks that Congress did not vote on.

Interrogation tactics

McCain has battled the Bush administration on a number of bills to end torture by the US. But this year he voted against a bill to force the CIA to abide by the rules set out in the army field manual on interrogation. But the same law gives the president the last word in establishing specific permissible interrogation techniques. The Bush administration has not ruled out waterboarding, considered illegal by McCain, as impermissible.

Arms control

McCain, distancing himself from Bush, said he would pursue a new arms control accord with Russia. His proposal to eliminate tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and his calls for nuclear talks with China set him apart from the president as well. Last month, McCain urged Bush to return to his demand for a complete and irreversible disarmament of North Korea’s nuclear programmes.