I agree entirely with Chris' take on the debate. Anyone who hasn't decided who they're voting for in this election by now is a low information voter, someone who's incapable of discerning the instances where McCain was intentionally (or worse, unintentionally) misleading and/or factually inaccurate. With little more than a basic grasp of the complex financial issues at issue and having only a limited understanding or awareness of world events, the swinger is going to look to the candidates' tone, confidence, and fighter instinct, among other qualities that are assessed on the visceral, rather than intellectual, level.
In this regard, McCain came in like a charging bull, a scrapper, yet, improbably, showed himself to be polished, steeped in historical context, and even steady. He played it like an underdog, effectively sticking the shiv to Obama every time he had the opportunity (the "shiv" is the appropriate weapon of choice, as McCain (hilariously) referred to "when [he] got out of prison," leaving out the ubiquitous POW modifier). How many times did McCain note that "Sen. Obama just doesn't understand"? To my surprise, by the end of the debate, it was Obama who seemed to border on the minature and McCain who towered over his opponent in stature.
An exaggeration? I don't think so. While I found plenty on an intellectual level with which to fault McCain, that stuff just doesn't seem to matter here. No, for the swinger what matters is the healthy and winning sheen of a JFK, the self-effacing and humorous quips of a Reagan, the pathos and ability to connect of a (Bill) Clinton. Obama delivered no memorable line, he stammered, had no coherent organization to his answers, and, most damaging, unlike McCain, he didn't have a consistent message or soundbite that he continually drove home throughout the debate. I don't remember a damn thing Obama said. All I remember is McCain having his way with him, swatting his feeble protestations away like pesky flies, and Obama = doesn't understand and Obama = lacks the experience. This was the worst debate performance by a Democratic nominee for president since Dukakis got all wonky about his hypothetically brutally beaten and raped wife in 1988, courtesy of Bernard Shaw. Sort of makes me realize what all of those yahoos were saying in the primary about wanting Hillary over Obama because she's at least a fighter (granted, she's most often fighting for the wrong things, so maybe it cancels out).
Look, maybe Obama's performance would be understandable and perhaps even passable if he were leading in the polls by 20 pts. But he's not. So maybe the best explanation for his performance is that he's a fucking sucky debater.
Other observations:
- McCain mistakenly referred to the Iranian Republican Guard (it's the Revolutionary Guard; the Republican Guard was defeated and then disbanded when the US of A invaded Iraq in 2003); of course, Obama ratified this gaffe by making the same mistake when he got the mic. Woulda been nice to be able to have a surrogate mention that as yet another example of McCain losing his marbles.
- I think the foil/inverse relationships between some of the candidates in this race are fascinating: McCain: God awful at giving a stump speech (or, fuck, any speech for that matter), but excels at debates (if you can get over his evidently irrepressible condescension, self-satisfaction, and perpetual sneer); Obama, on the other hand, excels at giving a stump speech, and in fact I far prefer to listen to one of his speeches to one of (Bill) Clinton's, but when debating he's drained of any hint of eloquence and prattles around ineffectually and with no real sense of purpose or urgency. With each point McCain makes about Obama's inexperience and lack of understanding, he effectively undercuts his nimrod running mate and bolsters Obama's running mate; likewise, each time Obama effectively demonstrates that experience doesn't matter as much as judgment does (clearly this is a hypothetical since he amazingly doesn't seem up to the task on this score), he undercuts Biden's central appeal as a candidate and excuses Palin's singular deficiency.
- As Josh Marshall has aptly pointed out, mockery is a very important tool in one's arsenal in combating the Republicans' shenanigans and outright lies. As he's also pointed out, Obama has shown real promise in deftly mocking McCain in some of his speeches before supporters. Why not begin tonight's debate by simply saying after thanking folks, the university, etc., "And Sen. McCain, I'm really glad you decided to join us tonight after all." Oh, I don't know, that might've been memorable, you know, something quip-y yet still totally respectful and something that the newsbots could've latched onto and mentioned after the debate and used as a means of bringing up McCain's crazy-ass behavior over the past few days. Screw that idea, let's instead spend a significant chunk of the foreign policy discussion talking about preconditions and preparation and lower level and higher level and fucking A!!!! What the fuck was he droning on about??!! And, uh, didn't he actually say in that YouTube debate, point fucking blank, that he would in fact meet with Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad without preconditions, full stop?! Well, now that he spent significant time hemming and hawwing and amending and interjecting this whole "preparations" non-distinction, the McCain folks can keep this baby alive for a few news cycles, even maybe generate a good scary attack ad over it, which would say that not only would he put us in mortal danger(!) by eating from the same cookie plate as Raul Castro, something only an inexperienced pol would've offered, but he then flip-flopped or lied about his position on the matter.
- Did you notice the camera angles that rendered it nearly impossible to see the left side of McCain's face? The campaigns must've reached some sort of agreement about that, or at least I'd think they would've had to, as the asymmetry of the camera angles was pretty apparent to me half-way through the debate. Even though the guy's paying someone thousands of dollars to cover up the scars he has on his face, along with the copious wrinkles, he's gotta still be worried about folks' reactions to glancing even a bit of the disfigurement that's nakedly on display here. It wouldn't surprise me if the Obama folks had decided to give the old guy a gimme on the camera angle thing, as it appears they're bending over backwards to make sure Palin's stay is as pleasant and comfortable as possible:
Advisers to Mr. Biden say they were comfortable with either format.
That's awesome! I'm sure they'll also be comfortable winning or losing the election to the most unsteady, unstable, erratic, and bellicose opponent to come along since Nixon under the most favorable conditions to Democrats imaginable. Six to one, half dozen to the other. Either way, democracy wins!
p.s. I know I paid him a compliment above, but if you want to get a glimpse of some Obama supporters who downed the Kool-Aid and aren't looking back, check out TPM's post-debate coverage, specifically the bit on monkey cognition and what this reveals about McCain's latent fear of Barack Obama. Please. Get over it. The wind beneath your wings was totally f-ing schooled tonight.
p.p.s. Marshall:
My own sense remains that this was basically a tie between these two candidates, with both bringing their A game.Agree! They both brought their A games. It's just that McCain's A game is pretty solid whereas Obama's pretty much sucks ass.
p.p.p.s. Victory! Oh if only the entire country were hearing impaired!
p.p.p.p.s. Apropos my observation above about camera angles, Yglesias notes that the cameras were also seemingly manipulated in such a way so as to obscure McCain's relative smallness. Perhaps that accounts for my impression that McCain wasn't seeming quite his usual Keebler Elfish-self tonight.
p.p.p.p.p.s. This ad was up immediately after the debate. Not sure how they pulled that off so quickly. In any event, really hope that deference thing works out for ya.
p.p.p.p.p.p.s by the way, not that I have any dogs in this fight, but I'm imagining Ole Miss's win over the fourth-ranked Gators, coming on the heels of successfully hosting a pretty substantive presidential debate with no evident hitches, makes for some pretty sweet icing on the cake for folks in Oxford.
p.p.p.whatever --- Update: While I believe Obama did not come off looking particularly well-versed and responsible during the debate, I really enjoyed Fallows' take on the debate and the strategy underlying each candidate's approach. I respect Fallows' experience and depth of knowledge about these types of things, and I particularly find noteworthy his reminder that Obama lamentably has to consider how he'll come off as a black man facing off against an older white guy. Haven't seen footage of Obama's debate against Keyes. I'm eager to see how his performance differed in that circumstance. More interesting analysis from Fallows.
2 comments:
I'm not sure I'd go so far and say that Kerry didn't have a worse debate performance. When Kerry got wonkish, he got incoherent, and gave the impression that he was debating himself. Obama doesn't do this. He just gets wonkish, awkward. He looks like a law professor who knows his stuff, and so has a presumption of authority, but then gets tripped up by an impudent yet smart student's question, and so spends so much time trying to convince the student with his tone that he DOES TOO know the answer, that he just looks like he's flailing.
But I do agree that Marshall is talking nonsense when he says they each brought their A game. What is he smoking? I love that he'll wax philosophical about the need to hit below the belt because THIS IS POLITICS!, AFTER ALL, but then he thinks that Obama did everything right here.
And of course, A.M. was right: when McCain said that offshore drilling is a bridge, Obama should have said, "Yes, John, it's a bridge to nowhere." He deserves to lose the election for missing that opportunity.
I wonder if all this positive feedback is going to reinforce the debate tactics (strategy? WHO THE F CARES??) of the Obama camp in the next debates. That would be most retarded.
That's exactly what I'm afraid of. All of this praise will mean one thing: don't fix something that ain't broke. And man, is it ever broke.
I'm not a huge Obama fan, but were I, I'd rather my candidate be under the impression that he's got something to prove going into the next couple of debates rather than feeling like more of the same will suffice.
Look, although the Obama folks would have you believe that it was a slam dunk and no one thinks otherwise, the reactions are far from monolithic. See http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/debate-reax.html#more
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