Beyond Ideology, a Generational Clash: Can McCain, so much part of the past, lead the future?

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT, pg1: The TV Watch
Beyond Ideology, a Generational Clash
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: September 27, 2008

One candidate cited Churchill and Eisenhower, and described George Shultz, who served in Ronald Reagan’s cabinet, as a “great secretary of state.” The other promised anxious voters a federal budget that could be examined on a “Google for government” and accused his opponent of having a “20th-century mindset.”

The first presidential debate was more than a clash of ideology or temperaments. Barack Obama and John McCain did not even wrestle over the $700 billion economic bailout. Theirs was a generational collision, and at times it looked almost like a dramatic rendition of Freudian family tension: an older patriarch frustrated and even cranky when challenged by a would-be successor to the family business who thinks he can run it better....

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His references to past cabinet members like Mr. Shultz and his 35-year friendship with Henry A. Kissinger reminded audiences of his experience, but also of his many, many years in Washington at a time when the nation’s lawmakers are held in the lowest of esteem. And when he disagreed with Mr. Obama, he had a scolding tone. He seemed almost piqued that he had to share the stage with a man who had been in the Senate only four years....

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Mr. Obama was not particularly warm or amusing; at times he was stiff and almost pedantic. But all he had to do was look presidential, and that was not such a stretch. Mr. McCain had the harder task of persuading leery voters that he can lead the future because he is so much part of the past.

He tried to remind viewers of his greater experience and heroic combat career, while also casting himself as a maverick outsider ready to storm the barricades. Mr. McCain wanted to be the true revolutionary in the room, but his is the Reagan revolution, and for a lot of people right now, it doesn’t look like morning in America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/us/politics/27watch.html?ref=todayspaper