John McCain's Last Stand

Last night's debate was easily the best on all levels: substantive, revealing, and dramatic. Rather than rehashing the same old arguments, moderator Bob Schieffer asked pointed and difficult questions that brought the candidates into new territory. And as in the last two debates, Senator Barack Obama remained collected and presidential while Senator John McCain looked like he could barely contain his disdain.

In every debate, McCain has started strong and Obama has ended strong, so the first half hour again went to McCain. He attacked Obama repeatedly on issues and connected to people through Joe the Plumber. But easily his best line of the night was, "I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago." It was strongly stated and addressed Obama's main attack . But why did it take so long for McCain to say it? Throughout the debates, McCain has seemed to forget that he no longer needs to worry about the Republican base. Sarah Palin has taken care of that. It's the independents he needs, and those are the ones who want to know how he differs from President Bush.

While it's true McCain was on offense during the first half hour, I found his strategy less effective than in the first debate. Back then, McCain dominated the discussion so that it consisted only of topics he wanted, making Obama look weak for defending himself. But this time around, Obama has learned how to play defense. He refused to let McCain's attacks define the debate, either repudiating them strongly (like using Fox News as a source on his side) or moving on to his topics of choice. McCain may have been more commanding, but he was hardly dominating Obama the way he could have.

Any lead McCain may have had early on evaporated with the negative campaigning question. Even though McCain's advertisements are widely seen as shamelessly negative, McCain played the victim card. He immediately brought up John Lewis, getting teary at the "hurtful" comments made about him. Even more so because Lewis is not part of Obama's campaign, McCain looked like a little kid crying about how life's not fair. It got worse for McCain when he voluntarily brought up Bill Ayers. Not only did Obama get to clear the Ayers issue once and for all, but he made McCain look petty for making it "the centerpiece" of his campaign. By calling out for a return to the issues, Obama looked like he was rising above McCain's petty sniping. If he had just avoided saying that McCain's ads are 100% negative (obviously false), this section would have been all good for him.

Another new and contentious topic was abortion. In general, Obama had been playing it safe, willing to sit on his lead. He wisely avoided the opportunity to bash Sarah Palin, letting her flaws speak for themselves. Yet while McCain answered the question safely, Obama was the one who turned a question about Supreme Court justices into a discussion on abortion. This was a risky move for Obama, as abortion is one of the subjects best able to divide voters up. Yet his answer was thoughtful enough to please anyone remotely pro-choice. He also drew McCain out into taking a full pro-life stance, that could potentially turn pro-choice undecideds against him. It's hard to know whether Obama's risk paid off, but it certainly drew major distinctions between the two candidates. This section then led to a final half hour in which Obama dominated, once again providing far better answers on health care and education. By ending in his comfort zone, the final impression left by Obama to voters was stronger.

While the issues discussed showed a lot about the candidates, their biggest difference was in demeanor. While some considered Obama flat, to me he seemed presidential. His cool, calm delivery stood in great contrast to the increasing emotion showed by McCain. McCain's emotion did sometimes work to his advantage, like in his line on President Bush. But as the debate continued, he seemed angrier and angrier. Reaction shots made him appear disdainful of Obama and like he was seething with rage. He brought to mind the sighs of Al Gore with his frustration. The visibility of his anger made Obama look all the more calm under pressure.

As much as we may focus on the issues, a lot of swing voters don't care about details. But they want someone who looks and acts like a president. And these people are likely to ask themselves who they want representing our country: Someone who is always cool under pressure, or someone whose rage boils visibly at the slightest provocation. McCain needed a decisive victory to turn the momentum around for his lagging campaign. Instead, he looked desperate as he flailed around for any attack that would stick. Two and a half weeks may be a long time in politics, and certainly something could happen to change the election around. But there's no question that these debates did nothing to improve McCain's chances.

Debate 2: More of the Same

With the polls shifting rapidly in Obama's favor, tonight's second presidential debate was considered a must-win for McCain. Yet it seems clear to me he was soundly defeated....by Tom Brokaw. That's right, in a night where both candidates repeated the same claims over and over again, it was moderator Tom Brokaw who was the real winner. Whether scolding the candidates like petulant children for breaking the rules or asking tough and worthy questions, Brokaw was on top. He may have given Obama and McCain that follow-up, but his look of scorn showed who was really in charge.

The town hall format caused a lot of the candidates' problems. With no follow-ups or rebuttals allowed, it quickly became clear that new strategies were needed for success. Even more than in the last debate, it was obvious when a candidate ignored a question to return to his platform. Attacking the other candidate too often made it look like they had no answers of their own. Yet despite how little these strategies worked, Obama and McCain just couldn't help themselves.

With less experience in town halls, Obama suffered most from the format. Obama continually forgot that he wasn't in a traditional debate, always harking back to McCain's previous answer. In the first half, he suffered from an acute case of Sarah Palin Syndrome: ignoring the question in a clunky and obvious way. He also has yet to learn from his biggest difficulty in the first debate: responding to McCain's accusations. He let himself play defense by continually correcting McCain, even when it wasn't his turn. Here he could learn a thing from Joe Biden, who sometimes left Palin uncorrected if it would make him look better. Lastly, Obama suffered from continually trying to break the rules. His worst moment came when he fought to respond to McCain's comments on taxes, then talked about it anyway during a Social Security question. He seemed to cross Brokaw more than McCain, which doesn't make him look good.

But if the rules threw Obama off, he did gain by talking directly to voters. He talked to them with respect and appeared presidential throughout. The voters may have also helped him talk clearer than he has in the past, free of the Al Gore need to live in statistics. When he stuck to the topic, he had many shining moments. In discussing health care, he laid out his plan clearly and made it personal, scoring him a big win in the debate. Foreign policy gave him many strong moments, whether promising to chase Al Qaeda or bringing up the United States' moral need to stop genocide. When he went beyond repeating his well-worn statements, the debate was his.

McCain had neither the lows nor the highs of Obama, giving a performance free of embarrassment or inspiration. The town hall format is one McCain loves, so you could see the joy in his face as he walked around the room and said "my friends" about ten times more than usual. But many of his efforts to connect to voters seemed to fall flat. He kept trying to make jokes that came out more condescending than funny (I'm not referring to calling Obama "that one," which seems overblown). He may have thought he was treating the audience like friends, but sometimes he just seemed to be turning himself into Sarah Palin.

His paraphrasing of Teddy Roosevelt, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," may have worked against him. I don't know about the stick, but there was a whole lot of soft speaking coming from McCain. When not blasting Obama on taxes or namedropping General Petraeus and Ronald Reagan, McCain's vocal cadence dropped to some pretty soporific levels. But what did wake me up were some "what the fuck" statements. First off, did anyone else hear McCain refer to some of the $700 billion going to terrorists, with no follow-up? Second, his plan to buy up all the faulty mortgages: has he talked about that before or did he just make that up on the spot? Third: a repetition of his promise to freeze all spending. Is anyone going to ask him to explain that? None of these is really a misstep, but it continues to seem odd to me the way he makes provocative statements without putting any context around them.

With strengths and weaknesses on both sides, it seems to me like tonight's unlikely to change anyone's mind. Most of the debate felt like a rerun of the first one, with even some of the same lines given (Obama's hatchet line was effective the first time, but less so now). There were no gaffes on either side, but nothing to really win people over either. And in both their favor, there were no mentions of Bill Ayers or the Keating Five. But with the polls what they are, a tie favors Obama. McCain's only got one more shot to turn the momentum around.

The Doggone VP Debate

Tonight, Senator Joe Biden rather handily won the Vice Presidential debate, but the question of who won is completely irrelevant. Everyone knew Biden is the superior debater, so the real competition was not of Biden vs. Governor Sarah Palin, but of each of them against their own expectations. After the Katie Couric interview last week, Palin became a national joke who most people thought couldn't even put a sentence together, let alone run a country. While the only time Biden could get himself on TV was if he had some silly gaffe, leading the average American to have no sense of who he is. So with expectation as the real test, it's clear that each of them performed way above their expectations.

I'll begin with Palin, who was the reason most people were so excited about the debate. While some may have expected her to embarrass herself tonight, she instead quite capably held her own. While she was rarely on top of the issues, she refused to let Biden steamroll her, consistently fighting back every assertion and leading the debate back to her comfort zone. She may have been nervous, but she spoke clearly and coherently. Her performance will clearly go a long way to freeing her of the stench of the Katie Couric interview, and few are likely to still think she's a complete idiot.

All that being said, there were a number of mistakes she repeatedly made throughout the debate. It was obvious she was coached to avoid difficult questions and steer her responses to areas she preferred. John McCain used this tactic all through the first debate and did so brilliantly, keeping a full half hour on pork barrel spending and making Obama play defense. Unfortunately, without McCain's practice, Palin's attempts were obvious and clumsy. She often began her answers with long pauses followed by stating she would like to return to a previous topic. Other answers just segued directly into talk of Alaska when it was irrelevant. Her continuous changing of topics made it seem like all she could talk about were Alaska and energy, which helped add to the belief that she is completely clueless about the country and the world.

She also presented two different Sarah Palins, both of which presented problems. On the one hand, about 80% of what she said sounded like McCain soundbites that were hammered into her head over the past week and that she desperately wanted to remember. Her recitation often sounded rote and forced, and she seemed nervous a good portion of the time. The rest of the time, she was the "folksy" Alaskan hockey mom who's "just like you." This character she's created was certainly her biggest selling point when she first entered the national stage, and it was likely to make a lot of people remember what they liked about her in the first place. But she's come a long way from winning people over with jokes about pitbulls. The constant winking and use of the word "doggone" caused her to seem like a cartoon character completely removed from reality. What all that means is the "breath of fresh air" she came in as has dissipated into a carefully crafted characterization that may be just as ungenuine as the talking points she spouts. Of course, that's just my take on her, and I expect many to still be lapping it up.

With Palin taking all of the media spotlight this campaign, Biden has always been the forgotten VP candidate. If he was mentioned in a sentence, it was either regarding one of his gaffes or calling him a safe and uninteresting pick for Obama. So while everyone expected him to do well against Palin with his greater knowledge of foreign and domestic policy, what was less expected is the way he completely stole the show. He managed to balance his tone nicely - treating Palin with respect but still willing to hammer her on certain points (usually indirectly, like when blasting Cheney after Palin defended him or purposefully mentioning the Bush Doctrine). He was passionate without seeming over-the-top. And for all of his lawyerly, politician-to-the-core style, he somehow came off as more genuine than the "real American" Sarah Palin.

Biden's biggest mistake was a recurring case of John Kerry/Al Gore Syndrome, in which the candidate gets caught up spouting facts and statistics that are difficult for anyone outside of Washington to follow, even if accurate. This is the difficulty of the broad vs. specific debate. Palin had 0% substance as threw out words like energy and education without ever going into any details. But at the same time, she got her points across a lot better than the deep analysis Biden sometimes gave.

But if this condition hurt Biden early on, he quickly corrected it in the second half. He learned to make his biggest points stick, often dramatically repeating them. While his method of numbering his arguments may have seemed very lawyerly, it also kept him organized and easy to follow. The numbering method also helped him respond to all of Palin's attacks when she often ignored all of his. Last week, Obama had trouble defending against McCain because he had to keep saying "that's not true," putting him on the offensive. In this way, Biden proved more effective, staunchly denying a claim from Palin while simultaneously shooting out another back at her.

Lastly, he effectively used his personal life to keep him from seeming elitist while also not overdoing it. By now, we've heard about McCain's time as a POW so much it has little effect, and Palin can't start a sentence without the word Alaska. But by mentioning his personal tragedy only once, and only in response to one of Palin's comments, Biden really hit it home. If that move was just calculated on his part, then he certainly used it effectively. But I tend to think the moment may have actually been geunine, and that's certainly the response it elicited from my viewing group.

So with both candidates doing so well by their own standards, it's hard to say what effect the debate will have. I imagine Palin's performance will reassure McCain supporters who had considered jumping ship over the past few weeks, so those huge Obama gains in the polls may slow down as the conservatives come back. But I think Biden's stronger performance will do more to win over independents, who tonight clearly saw the gap in leadership between these two candidates.

Gut Reactions on the First Debate

Tonight's debate is not the type where you can clearly say that one candidate won while the other lost. For the most part, Obama and McCain both stayed true to the message they are sending voters and repeated the points we've heard many times before. To the crowd I watched with this meant a pretty expected and uninteresting debate. But behind that cool, politician exterior, the candidates did let out a few moments of debate drama gold. And for that reason, it's worth looking at how they fared.

The biggest irony of the debate was that McCain's finest half hour was the first one, focused on the economy. During the first third, McCain had complete and utter control of the discussion, whipping out accusation after accusation against Obama. The fact that most of the accusations were either untrue or heavily distorted only added to his dominance: they forced Obama to go on the defensive. Obama spent so much time correcting McCain's false assertions that he couldn't make any of his own. By putting Obama on the defensive, McCain made him look weak, which is the best thing a Republican can do to a Democrat.

But as the second third hit and the focus shifted to international politics, the playing field became a bit more even. Suddenly, Obama went on the offense, speaking out strongly against the Iraq War and in favor of stopping Al Qaeda. But McCain fought right back, name-dropping General Petraeus on a biminutely basis and voicing his support of the surge. But it was also at this point that McCain began to make some mistakes. His constant references to Reagan might have mobilized the Republican basis, but his continued insistence on mentioning politicians last relevant before I was born seem unlikely to help. More significantly, his suggestion that the bailout be paid for through a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran's affairs, and something else seemed out of the blue and erratic. Beyond the obvious pandering to veterans, it showed a McCain willing to act on temper that we would see again very shortly.

If the score so far is first third to McCain and second third tied, I have to give the final third to Obama. Here Obama made some of his more popular points, such as advocating (for the 6th time or so) alternative energy and speaking of restoring America's reputation in the world. But while these are points McCain essentially agrees upon, he failed to connect himself to them. When asked how he felt about America's position in the world, he ignored the question to talk yet again about Iraq, missing a surefire way to gain some immediate approval. He also provided the night's most shameful display of pandering by speaking against a "second Holocaust" in an attempt to show he loves Israel more than Obama. If any Jew falls for that, I will be deeply ashamed for my people. But his weakest point in the debate came when Obama attempted to quote Henry Kissinger against him. McCain's interrupting, outraged tirade about how he's known Kissinger since before Obama could read made him look not like a president but like a child throwing a temper tantrum. John McCain of the erratic temper showed his face today as Obama asked moderator Jim Lehrer to ask a new question.

So overall, I expect the debate to go down as a draw, as each candidate ably outlined their plan of how to fix our country while ignoring every question Lehrer asked. But forgive me if, perhaps through bias, I feel that Obama came out of this debate stronger. They may have been an even match in policy, but Obama passed what many Americans look at as the stronger test: who can appear more presidential. While McCain yelled and spent his listening time looking like he wanted to punch Obama, Obama remained cool and collected throughout. Their closing statements each aptly summed up their performances. Obama summed up his platform again, while McCain mentioned his Vietnam experience again. Obama mostly played it safe tonight, giving a solid if perhaps uninspiring performance. But he also did nothing to embarass himself, which cannot be said of the bold emotionality of John McCain.

UPDATE: I watched the Kissinger clip again and admit that I may have (greatly) exaggerated McCain's temperament. It may have been less a case of temper taking over than of just being very firm with his statements. But even if McCain did not lose it as I suggested, he still looked angry a good portion of the debate and did not appear as presidential as Obama.