JOLLY DAYS

Debate Two: A Re-View

The debates can only be reviewed as a show. First the spoiler: in the general election, Obama will win. It is in the stars. The press and manic advocates can relax. Obama wins in the end out of no quality of his own. It is just in the stars, the convergence of events.

Now the players: Obama was professorial and somewhat boring, McCain a very experienced and effective politician, Brokaw looked embalmed. Speaking of embalmed: the audience was badly in need of an opening act — something was needed to loosen them up. (A Seinfeld standup set before air?)

McCain was very effective in the format provided. He was comfortable. He connected. Obama is professorial and can't seem to shake it. It is his predisposition. He seldom went to the back of the plane in his campaign flights to talk to the press informally. He needs a wall. He sets up huge stadiums in which to address the impersonal throng, or stands behind a protective podium to give speeches out of a discomfort with personal contact. Obama is only, or principally, comfortable with unquestioning supporters. Obama really makes no empathic connection — a strange quality in a politician.

The troubling things about McCain: he is a maverick. The very thing he touts isn't suitable for running things. We need engagement now, not contention. He is too quick to react; his judgments appear too emotional.

The troubling things about Obama. He follows. If McCain talks about bipartisanship, Obama says the same thing in his turn. This happened again and again in the primaries. Is Obama a leader, or a repeater? McCain is correct: Obama has never stood up to any constituency, about anything. Obama's supporters want him to “go harder” in the debates, but what he needs to do is go harder against their excesses.

We will just have to trust to Obama's intellectual grasp of the structural problems and the push of circumstance to force him to act. We will have to trust to the deeply neurotic Democrats to overcome their vengeance problem, their fractionalized identity politics nonsense, and see the interests of the country as paramount; the Republicans need to come together as something like a coherent party.

Obama's proposals, in their intent, seem more on point. Obama was right in his priorities. It seems he would do better by the average person. A business friendly administration is not as important as a citizen friendly one. It's come down to that. Obama seems disposed to make that connection intellectually, even if unable to do so on a personal basis.

The truth is, both candidates are decent and able individuals who will fight for the country they both love. Exactly what they can do given the current situation, well, no one can push the river, we'll just have to ride it out and try and steer when we can.