The special election was more a battle between two warring political camps in the Bronx than an ideological contest between two candidates.
It reflected the belief that the Cold War was an ideological, psychological, and cultural contest for hearts and minds that would be won or lost on the plain of public opinion.
At its root, the struggle is an ideological contest, a war of ideas that engages all of us, public servant and private citizen, regardless of nationality.
An ideological contest can be a long and difficult one.
For too long, Washington has subordinated vital hemispheric concerns to ideological contests in Central America.
It was here that the ideological contest of the Ahmadinejad presidency was starkest.
The peace framework has swept aside the old ideological contests and reduced the Khmer Rouge to a hollow version of its former self.
This would be achieved, he noted, not by a Leninist putsch but by "ideological contest in a genuine multiparty democracy."
Because of the influence of the Cold War's ideological contest, and the interference of some global powers, Cambodia found itself in an insecure environment.
Perhaps more so now than in the cold war - when the ideological contest between the West and the Soviet bloc was clear - we need to articulate principles of American policy clearly.