What’s this election about?

Even former Sen. Robert J. Dole, the Kansas Republican who has a touch of prairie Seinfeld to him, concedes that the 1996 contest between him and President Bill Clinton was an election about, well, nothing. With the perspective provided by the worst Tuesday in American history, the 2000 election, where al-Qaida and terrorism were barely mentioned, now seems to have been about nothing as well — or nothing very important.

This month, the New Statesman, a British weekly, had a cover story proclaiming that President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts were “no different” and, to add a sprinkle of anti-American seasoning to its offering, proclaimed that “Kerry will be just as bad as Bush.”

It has long been true that, from a European viewpoint, American politics runs the gamut, as Dorothy Parker might have said, from A to B. To them, our politics are comfort food for the masses, primitive landscapes painted in earth tones — mostly because, from their viewpoint, our right-wingers lack conviction (and cudgels) and our left-wingers lack passion (and plans for land reform).

Tough. American elections are decided by American voters, not by European intellectuals, and to Americans, Kerry and Bush present distinct differences — enough that, if Kerry had a more robust sense of humor and irony, he might think of himself as, in Phyllis Schlafly’s timeless phrase about Barry Goldwater, a choice, not an echo.

This election, moreover, represents an important choice for Americans, because more than ever the American presidency is a lot like Mark Twain’s view of a riverboat pilot: “Two things seemed pretty apparent to me. One was, that in order to be a pilot a man had to learn more than any one man ought to be allowed to know; and the other was, that he must learn it all over again in a different way every 24 hours.” If you doubt this, think about the way the president looked at life on Sept. 10, 2001.

So what is this election about? Here are a few things to start with:

The difference between an LL.B. from Boston College and an M.B.A. from Harvard. OK, the thing about B.C. and Harvard doesn’t really matter, except maybe in hockey. But the difference between law school and business school surely does matter. It’s the difference in the way a lawyer and a business executive look at the world, the difference in the way their minds approach a problem. (I’m bracing myself for a barrage of letters on this one, and may need a decent defense lawyer before week’s end.)

Lawyers are nurtured in the glories of logic, business executives in the joys of entrepreneurship. No one who has spent 30 minutes with Kerry would think he is a businessman. No one who has spent a half-hour with Bush would think he was a lawyer.

The difference between collective security and independent action in foreign affairs. Both Bush and Kerry are sons of diplomats, but Kerry is steeped in the tradition of collective action and international organizations, while Bush (whose father was chief American delegate to the United Nations, an irony for the ages) is chary of that tradition. Indeed, the most important new doctrine in American foreign affairs since George F. Kennan’s concept of containment is Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive action.

This is a dangerous period in world affairs, and the difference between these two approaches represents a clear choice, not only for Americans but also for the commentators worldwide who see Kerry and Bush as the same guy with different haircuts.

The difference in the lessons their youth (and Vietnam) taught them. How young a person is is often far less important than when he or she was young, and both these candidates were young during the period of the youth rebellion that was fueled in large measure by the Vietnam War.

Bush has often said that he was unaffected by the Vietnam protests that swirled around the New Haven of his Yale years. But he was not unaffected by a brief campus encounter with William Sloane Coffin Jr., the Yale chaplain, shortly after his father lost his 1964 Senate race to Ralph Yarborough in Texas. “I know your father,” Bush recalls Coffin saying. “Frankly, he was beaten by a better man.” That seared Bush and may have helped keep him from being lured to the Vietnam protests in which Coffin, by mid-decade a collegiate cult hero, played such a prominent role at Yale.

But this is certain: Bush, who did not serve in Vietnam, never spoke out against the war. Kerry, who did serve in Vietnam, became a prominent spokesman for veterans who opposed the conflict. For men and women of their age — Kerry is not quite a baby boomer, and Bush was born just six months into the boom — Vietnam was the defining cultural event of their time.

The difference in their approaches to the craft of politics. Neither man is a citizen-politician in the purest sense; though Kerry has held office since he became lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1983 and Bush didn’t take office until he became governor of Texas in 1995, both sought congressional seats as young men, Bush losing a House race in 1978 and Kerry losing one in 1972. Since then, Bush has run an oil company and a baseball team and Kerry has served in the Senate. (One of Kerry’s peers was Al D’Amato; one of Bush’s was George Steinbrenner. Who says these guys have led charmed lives?) The result is that, by experience and temperament, Kerry is an insider and, despite a decade in politics, including four years in the White House, Bush remains something of an outsider.

The two men aren’t the same. And we haven’t spoken a word about tax policy.

David Shribman is a columnist for Universal Press Syndicate.