McCain tried hard last night to paint Obama as a big-spending liberal who hangs around with radicals. But ideology may matter less to voters this year than temperament, and in this downturn, conservatism may be even more suspect than liberalism. In assailing Obama from the right, McCain may only have deepened the problems he already has.
That is the concluding paragraph of a column this morning by E.J. Dionne entitled What Joe the Plumber Can't Fix. Feel free to take a moment to read the column. I don't mind. Especially because I am not going to fully explore it. Then remember these words:
But ideology may matter less to voters this year than temperament, and in this downturn, conservatism may be even more suspect than liberalism.
Of course, Dionne writes from a liberal's perspective, and thus conservatives may choose to dismiss those words. Perhaps they are uncomfortable, because the words are reminiscent of the idea that the truth has a liberal persuasion. Which those of us here already know.
Dionne makes an early point about McCain's negativity, and we know that vote persistently see him as more negative than Obama.
Let me offer one more snip, of two paragraphs, from Dionne, then go to a few thoughts of my own. Dionne writes:
But eventually McCain launched the attack everyone was waiting for, referring to Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, the '60s radical with whom Obama served on a Chicago education board that also included Republican members. Obama calmly noted that his relationship with Ayers was limited and that Ayers would play no role in an Obama administration.
But McCain was wound up, and before he was done, he made the astonishing claim that some fraudulent voter registrations obtained by ACORN -- that's the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- constituted "one of the greatest frauds in voter history" and were "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Gosh, I didn't know our democratic fabric was so frail.
I didn't know our democratic fabric was so frail. Neither did I. In this telling ACORN is the quintessential bogeyman, even more threatening than "The Enemy Within" as J. Edgar Hoover termed the American Communist Party.
But this is a good place to stop and reflect. That paragraph contains two over the top expressions, "greatest fraud" and "destroying the fabric." BE SCARED. BE VERY SCARED. Only they are so over the top it raises questions about McCain's judgment, and - yes - his emotional stability, that he seemingly gets so wrought up over things so trivial.
And does NOT address the real issues facing the American people. That is is first problem.
And the other is much more basic, not directly addressed by Obama, but clearly understood by everyone watching. McCain claims he can work in a bi-partisan fashion, but last night offered no evidence of it. There were no mentions of Russ Feingold, or Teddy Kennedy or even of faux-democrat Joe Lieberman. He offered an over-the-top (again) criticism of John Lewis. And when asked whether Joe Biden was qualified to be President could not simply stop and say "of course, he is one of the most qualified men in the country, even though I disagree with him on some policy issues" but instead had to offer a litany of what McCain considered bad judgments. But these didn't connect. People now really don't care who said or did what about Iraq and Saddam in 1990 and 1991.
By contrast, Obama complimented McCain where he agreed, even saying that McCain was "right." He chose NOT to directly criticize the clearly unqualified (that is the judgment of a majority of the American people) Sarah Palin, saying he would leave it to the judgment of the voters. He he offered a clear example of reaching across party lines when he talked about taking foreign policy advice from Dick Lugar (although many casual listeners would not realize that Lugar is a Republican).
I think the pundits were totally wrong in saying Obama was too professorial. We know they wanted red meat, they wanted him to hit back on G. Gordon Liddy, and various connections of the lobbyists associated with McCain's campaign. Obama was too smart for that. And as annoying as it may have been that he kept returning to his stump speech talking points rather than simply answering many questions in the frames in which they were asked, he was thereby able to portray a confidence and a competence:
... that he knows what is important to the American people
... that he has thought about these issues
... that he is prepared to focus on the real issues, and not be distracted by easy partisan games.
Ask yourself, whose performance better demonstrated a candidate prepared to come and change the tone in Washington, the old man whose facial expressions and body language constantly displayed an anger and a focus on things the American people consider trivial and who was demonstrating the old attack politics he claims he wants to change, or the man whose most devastating response was simply to look at his opponent and flash that brilliant smile so full of warmth and confidence and thereby draw even more of the American people with him.
We have had three presidential debates. One could be tempted to now use a three-fold expression from tennis: Game, Set and Match.
But it is more. Game, Set, Match, and Championship.
Anyone who has any doubts need merely to look at the reactions of those who participated in focus groups and snap polls.
The question now is how large Obama's victory will be. And how many people he will bring in with me. Kitchen sinks and mud will not matter, because a clear majority of the American people do not care.
There is one thing they do care about - they are sick and tired of the benefits of the economy accruing to a narrow few while the rest of us slip further back. They WANT to " share spread the wealth" and McCain's repeating words about sharing spreading the wealth as if they were a negative shows how out of touch with mainstream America he actually is.
McCain was 'erratic" last night, lurching from one attack to another. At times he may have generated some immediate response, especially from men in the CNN dial group. But he did not connect. He turned people off. He was angry, irritable, impatient, not getting his words out clearly, and thus - yes - seemed too old for the job. Especially with the trouble he had articulating much of what he wanted to say.
In the previous debates Obama had demonstrated that he met the standards of acceptability to be president. His judgment was validated when the vice presidential candidates squared off. All that was left was for McCain to effectively disqualify himself by his temperament. And last night the American people got one last chance to make a side-by-side comparison. And on temperament it was no contest.
As this race is no contest.
Which is why we should now get out there and crush the Republicans: in the electoral college, in the House, in the Senate, in Governor's races, all the way up and down the ballot.
Peace.