"The scowls and the squints and the facial tics of John McCain didn't serve him well here," said Obama adviser Robert Gibbs after last night's debate.
But it wasn't McCain's smirks or rattling his papers or lecturing Obama that lost the average viewer. Who is the average viewer? Let's think Sarah Palin. Someone who doesn't read the paper every day or tune in to the TV news every night.
Neither did McCain alienate the Sarahs of this world when he got "Kardari" and "failed state" wrong or flubbed the pronunciation of Ahmadinejad. McCain lost because ...
... of the way he talked over the heads of the American people.
You don't show your leadership by being a show-off. FDR understood that. Bill Clinton knows that.
McCain's a smart guy with a wealth of foreign policy facts, figures and personal anecdotes at his disposal. He's been a senator so long, he seems to think that dropping names and acronyms shows off his knowledge and experience. I think it just ends up confusing -- and alienating -- your average voter.
McCain mentioned SDI and KGB, Waziristan and George Shultz, the Great Society and the DOD. Most people watching the debate won't say to themselves, "Oh, yes, South Waziristan! Bin Laden's secret hiding place, dontcha know!" Heck, most TV viewers will be scratching their heads over the references to Reagan's "star wars" and the Department of Defense, LBJ's programs and Soviet secret police.
When McCain complained that Obama didn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy, he wasn't just talking down to his Democratic counterpart, he was talking down to the American people.
If McCain is as smart as he thinks he is, he'll stop the dramatic 11th-hour suspensions of his campaign and cut the name dropping in the next debates. The average viewer won't be impressed, just confused.