AGE: 46
OCCUPATION: New York Times columnist
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 0
PRO: Styling himself a consensus conservative, the former Weekly Standard writer and one-time drum-banger for the Iraq War has reinvented himself as a proponent of the New Third Way: he wants an Obama-McCain race so badly, he can taste it — and so can his readers.
CON: Will his old editor, Bill Kristol, overshadow him as the Times' top conservative voice?