In the absence of just about anything else remotely interesting in the second Presidential Debate, it looks like the above soundbite is going to become the most memorable moment of the night. That’s not to say it isn’t memorable on its own (seriously, “that one?”), but aside from that, this was one boring, repetitive yawner of a debate. Anyway, here are a few of my thoughts on what we saw tonight (that is, if you managed to stay awake).
- What the hell was up with this debate format? We’ve been hearing McCain yammer on for weeks about how he wanted to do town halls with Obama, all this talk about how the town hall setting is McCain’s strong suit, and how this debate would give the candidates a chance to directly engage with voters. Unfortunately, this debate failed to deliver on every count. On the first point, if we had had 10 debates like this, the American electorate would likely have gotten so bored that they would have just stopped paying attention. Second, McCain wasn’t much different than in the first debate, except this time he got a chance to lurk while Obama answered questions. Kinda creepy. Most of all, though, the debate format was so static and controlled that it turned into, in the words of CNN’s Gloria Borger, a showcase for extended stump speeches. I’d go further – with some exceptions (like the health care question), this was almost a point for point rehash of the first Presidential Debate. I can’t even count how many times I heard both candidates repeating the same talking points and getting a bizarre sense of deja vu. It got so bad that when McCain started repeating his line about not having friends in Washington, I actually got excited because I thought he was going to say the “Miss Congeniality” line, as though I were watching Good Times and waiting to hear “Dynomite!” Imagine my extreme disappointment when that didn’t happen. Shucks.
- Why was Tom Brokaw even there? All he did was try to reinforce the rigid structure of the format, constantly reminding the candidates (and us) that they had agreed to this specific format and yada yada yada. Any time it looked like the candidates were about to enter something resembling a coherent exchange, Brokaw would jump back in and scold them like an elementary school teacher. The whole thing was just…weird.
- One thing I’ve thought that was possible from the moment McCain and Obama secured their respective party’s nomination was a repeat of the Kennedy-Nixon effect from the 1960 Presidential Debates. Anyone who’s taken a US History or Communications class knows exactly what I’m talking about: people who listened to the 1960 debates on the radio thought Nixon won, while people watching TV saw a youthful, vibrant Kennedy next to a sickly, older Nixon, and concluded that Kennedy won. Well, that was on display tonight to some degree, with one big difference: Obama beat McCain on both counts from an audio and visual perspective. Obama was more commanding in both regards, and the town hall served to hurt McCain further by highlighting the age gap and making McCain look creaky. While much of that had to do with his war injuries, we Americans are a rather superficial people at heart who like to see stout, strong leaders – I would imagine some viewers were startled by how frail McCain looked next to Obama.
- McCain’s attempts at humor were rather bizarre, too. I mean, hair plugs? Really? I don’t want to be reminded yet again that a candidate is old and rickety – especially not with who he has waiting in line behind him.
- Something else odd about the debate’s format, not to keep coming back to that: I’m baffled why the campaigns agreed to it, but more so McCain than Obama. Why would McCain want such a controlled, sterile debate atmosphere? All it really does is ensure that there will be no slip-ups or deviations from the script. But with McCain losing more ground every day and needing to do something to shake up his campaign, wouldn’t he have been in favor of something that would allow him to do more “straight talk?” Sure, there’s the chance he could commit a huge gaffe or slip-up, but there’s just as much a chance Obama would as well. And this is desperation time for the McCain campaign, if the polls and the campaign’s behavior in the past week are any judge – the time to take chances was tonight. Instead, we just got a repeat of the same debate we saw over a week ago with neither candidate deviating from the script – a script which was a winning one for Obama, I might add. There was nothing new, nothing changed, and the polls will likely reflect that in the coming days by remaining in the status quo. And the status quo is something John McCain can’t afford.
- If there were any doubt over what McCain thought of his missed opportunity tonight, you didn’t need to look any further than the two candidates’ behavior immediately after the debate ended. Obama and his wife stuck around to talk to the audience members, and Obama specifically spent a lot of time talking to the man who asked the last question of the night, a former veteran. McCain, on the other hand, quickly left the debate hall. Read into that what you will, but these actions spoke to a contrast that was clear between the candidates tonight – one made an effort to connect with people, while the other uttered snarky one-liners and seemed condescending not only toward his opponent, but the audience as well. Paul Begala on CNN called Obama sticking around after the debate “Clinton-esque.” How would McCain’s behavior be described, then? Nixon-esque?
- One positive thing I’ll say about the debate format was that it prevented things from getting too negative. There wasn’t a mention of Bill Ayers or the Keating Five, and I think that from a debate standpoint, that was probably a good thing. Things could have gotten too personal very fast, and it could have turned off a significant portion of voters – voters who are undoubtedly perturbed by the most recent negative turn the campaign has taken. So on that point, the debate did its job, but I was selfishly disappointed by the lack of some good theater, especially after the VP Debate failed to produce anything insane.
- One more thing I liked: Obama’s response about Americans having to sacrifice in tough times and invoking the FDR spirit of public service, including expanding the Peace Corps. Public service is something that would do the people in this country well, and McCain’s response was just about a spending freeze, and in the context of the question it just sounded very robotic. Guess it shouldn’t be any surprise that Republicans make so much fun of community organizers – they seem to think that the only way to sacrifice for your country is to fight in a war. And that simply isn’t true.
- Speaking of good theater, the closest thing we had to it, as I said before, was the truly bizarre moment when McCain referred to Obama as “that one” while talking about a vote in the Senate. Now, I’ve always joked that this campaign would be over if McCain made anything perceived as a racial dig in a debate, and that we’d be able to hear the sound of the entire country simultaneously gasping. And, well, I think that tonight’s debate was the closest we’ll get to that in many people’s eyes. Personally, I didn’t find it racist – just extraordinarily condescending and disrespectful. But really, this is in keeping with McCain’s demeanor toward Obama in the last debate, where he didn’t make eye contact with him. Tonight, he wouldn’t shake Obama’s hand, and then of course came “that one,” with an off-handed pointing gesture, not even looking at Obama. What’s important is that this off-handed comment will be analyzed to kingdom come over the next few days, and a decent number of people are going to see a racial component to it. I can’t imagine many independent voters being terribly happy about that, considering that voting group’s professed dislike for negativity.
- You may notice that I’m not talking much about policy and the issues. Well, that’s because we didn’t really learn anything new or different tonight. Just about the only difference from the first debate, other than the “format,” was early on when the candidates talked about their health care plans. McCain gave the same tired Republican mantra of “Obama wants to take away your health care plan, he wants a government mandate, he wants to eliminate freedom of choice.” Yawn. Then he touted his plan to give people a $5,000 credit to help pay for their health care. That’ll be useful, at least for the hour in an emergency room it buys you. Obama’s plan isn’t perfect (the one thing I thought Hillary had over Obama, as a matter of fact, was a superior health plan), but it’s certainly better than McCain’s nebulous band-aid. Hell, I don’t even know if you could call a $5,000 health care credit a band-aid in this age of skyrocketing premiums and co-pays – it’s more akin to pointing at a wound, calling it an “owie,” and hoping it goes away on its own.
This debate wasn’t a home run for anybody, but McCain is clearly hurt more by that. In polls released after the debate, CNN showed that voter preferences toward Obama increased, and that he had a 59-37 lead on the question of who was better equipped to run the economy. Many of the analysts said that if those numbers held, the election was over. In a strange sort of way, tonight’s debate was a game-changer for McCain. In squandering yet another opportunity to gain ground on Obama, it may have signalled that his campaign is truly at a dead end.
