I haven't spent private face time with all four American top candidates, but I have done so with two of them and think my impressions might be of interest.

It was just over three years ago, and the timing was telling, since both John McCain and Joe Biden were on the verge of deciding to take the plunge and run for president. They were still unencumbered of in-the-race constraints, freely speaking their minds.

The reason for the sit-downs is a monthly interview I conduct of movers and shakers for a popular national US magazine. I thought these senators were especially central to the future of US-Israel relations, and I had a sense that each would be making headlines in the near future; likewise I interviewed Sen. Joe Lieberman during that same period.

I caught up with McCain in his impressive old Senate Building office. The newer buildings have so less of an historical presence. He bounded into the room, and for a few hours, it was just the two of us, plus my best friend from college who at that time served as the solon's communications director.

McCain was in full command of the facts on every issue I raised. He spoke lucidly and convincingly without the aid of notes. His eyes twinkled, his handshake conveyed friendly confidence and his smile was infectious. I even enjoyed a few example of his famous barbed humor.

WHILE OTHERS still sought to prop up the pretense of an active Bush "road map" for Middle East peace, the Vietnam hero demonstrated his maverick independence, proclaiming it essentially dead - this was early 2004. "I don't think anybody believes there is any viable road map at this moment. A cessation of violence must take place before any road map can be pursued."

Similarly, he spoke without equivocation in support of Israel's security wall in the West Bank, saying things rarely heard elsewhere on Capitol Hill: "As long as there are going to be people who will cross over into Israel and commit acts of terror, there won't be peace... that's why we have the wall." In the context of 2004, he was prescient indeed.

He called for Yasser Arafat to be reduced to irrelevancy, while emphasizing any Palestinian state must be linked to Palestinian democracy. "The world is a better place" as a result of the war in Iraq, this at a time when criticism of the war was fast peaking. Even before the Israeli POWs of the Lebanon war and Gilad Schalit, McCain called for "putting a lot more pressure on Syria to account for those taken prisoner... we know who controls Lebanon, and that is Syria."

He expressed sharp skepticism that Iran would submit to international pressures against acquiring nuclear capabilities and, although referring to the 2004 reelection of George Bush, sounded a clarion call even more relevant for the elections to come four years later: "I worry about the Democratic Party swinging so far to the left that we might see a repetition of 1972 [Nixon vs. McGovern]. It would be harmful to the country to see an isolationist, protectionist, xenophobic Democratic nominee for president... in order to appeal to the Democratic fringe."

I located Biden a few months later on his now famous train commute back home to nearby Delaware. He is handsome, even debonair, and genuinely friendly. A regular guy I would instinctively invite to my poker game. Again, full command of the main issues I raised, derived from decades of dealing with them on Capitol Hill and on the global stage.

He astutely distinguished between "freedom and democracy" in the Arab world and he too doubted the efficacy of Palestinian leadership (by then Arafat had died): "I don't believe Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] has the knowledge or the game plan to keep the radical Palestinian factions from taking potshots at the Israelis." This was before Hamas seized Gaza, before the Kassams started raining down.

BIDEN WAS adamant on stopping Iran's atomic quest cold, though others have charged him with flip-flopping. He had a plan for "isolating the theocrats in the Middle East, especially in Iran," which he shared with me in compelling detail. Saluting a positive change to President George W. Bush's approach during his second term (he believed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had persuaded the president), he said that Europe was finally "putting more sticks in their basket, as the US was putting more carrots into ours."

I reminded him of an incident 20 years earlier when he had been questioned as to American Jewry's alleged dual loyalty reflected by its support of Israel. This elicited his strongest, most emotive response: "There is no reason for any American Jew to apologize for his or her commitment to Israel. If there were no Israel, the US would have to invent one. Israel is a commitment born out of a moral obligation that is felt by people like me, and my support starts in my gut, goes up to my heart and then to my brain."

Without taking a breath, he continued, "If I were a Jew, I'd be a Zionist. In fact, I am a Zionist. I believe that the well-being of the Jewish people around the world depends on the existence of Israel, and Israel in turn is the beacon that allows guys like me to make the case to go into the Balkans to save Muslims from genocide."

As I had to hastily excuse myself due to the approach of Shabbat, he quipped that "I know all about that stuff. After all, I've been Joe Lieberman's Shabbos goy for years whenever he has to stay in his office on the Hill on Saturday."

I walked away cumulatively impressed by both McCain and Biden. Which leaves me to speculate that in a perfect world, a McCain-Biden ticket would have been the very best conceivable, both for Israel and America. They have wisdom, vision and all the right values and gut instincts - each of them.

IN ALL reality, Israel probably doesn't have that much to worry about with either ticket this year. Obama is surrounded by a phalanx of up close and personal Jewish financial supporters from Chicago who undoubtedly care deeply about Israel, and now he also has Biden from whom to receive counsel.