Every parochial reason argues for Alaskans to lean toward George Bush in Tuesday's presidential election. He is a vociferous advocate of oil production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He just signed a bill with significant federal incentives for a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope. He listens to Alaska's elder statesman, Ted Stevens, on everything from missile defense to fisheries policy. And he helps our senior senator deliver the federal dollar back home to build a state that still lacks infrastructure and amenities taken for granted everywhere else.

But this is a national election, with global implications. Alaska's particular interests do not control. This election is fundamentally a referendum on the overall performance of George Bush. And on that ground there is little to support and much to oppose.

The man who ran for president as "a uniter, not a divider" has governed exactly opposite and left the country weaker than he found it -- overstretched and disrespected abroad and polarized and antagonized at home. The man who lost the popular vote and won only an ambiguous Electoral College victory governed as though he'd been given a landslide mandate. The result is a deeply divided electorate despite the natural tendency, in time of war, to support a sitting president. Take away the war premium of patriotic support for an incumbent and this one might be facing a landslide rejection.

The turning point is the president's adventure in Iraq and his stubborn refusal to acknowledge error. There was plenty of strategic and military counsel against an invasion that both downgraded the hunt for the prime enemy -- al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden -- and focused the energies of Islamic extremists on the occupation of a divided Islamic country. Iraq was a human rights problem to itself and a security problem to the region before; it's a smaller human rights problem to itself but a much greater security problem to the world now. The case for war turned out to be completely unfounded, and now that we've occupied Iraq, to paraphrase Secretary of State Colin Powell, we own it. The United States has no satisfactory exit strategy. The costs of occupation -- human, strategic, military, diplomatic, financial -- grow higher each day. The president's obsession with ousting Saddam Hussein, plus his administration's arrogance and overreach, have squandered America's military advantage and world standing, and turned a sympathetic post-Sept. 11 world into a doubting post-Iraq one.

Somehow a fresh start is required.

After 20 years in the Senate, John Kerry is seasoned at statecraft. He has specialized in the biggest foreign affairs problems facing the country. He served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations. He worked with Sen. John McCain, America's most famous Vietnam War prisoner, to lay to rest old doubts about Americans in captivity.

Politics and world leadership demand both compromise and conviction. Sen. Kerry's proposals on the economy, health care, education and deficit reduction are a return to the centrism of the Bush senior and Clinton years. There is a strong caveat here: The price tag of Sen. Kerry's campaign promises very likely exceeds the nation's capacity to pay, particularly while dealing with record deficits. He also will likely face a Republican Congress united in opposition. But like most of the Democrats of his generation, Sen. Kerry is more a pragmatist than an ideologue -- and that is a significant improvement for a nation that is pained and polarized by President Bush's exclusive sense of conviction.

Alaskans do not face an easy choice in this race for president. "We, the people," in this case, means something broader than self-interest. With some misgivings, we are constrained to choose Sen. Kerry -- for the good of the nation and the world.