McCain thinks he killed tonight. He is completely wrong.

Plaid Adder

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Wed Oct-15-08 10:34 PM
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McCain thinks he killed tonight. He is completely wrong.

And this is yet another reason why you don't want this guy running the country: he's got no @#$! idea how he comes across to other people.

The reason he was so much more chipper at the end of the night this time was that he really thinks he did well. He got in all the zingers that he'd loaded up with and you could see that every time he let one fly he just sat there grinning and looking hugely pleased with himself. But I do not think that it worked for him, and here is why:

1) In general, it is not a good idea to laugh at your own jokes, unless you are laughing with someone else who has laughed at them first. If nobody else is laughing at your joke but you are, then you look like a loser. Since neither Bob Schieffer nor Obama were laughing at most of them, McCain's self-congratulatory cackling just made their failure resound more loudly.

2) He seriously thought that interrupting Obama a million times to stick the knife in was going to enable him to emerge the victor, I suppose because that's how he figured he was kicking Obama's "you know what." However, since McCain never got a rise out of Obama, that little drama didn't play out either; it just made McCain look like a flea trying to behead an elephant by biting his way through its neck. Maybe you might make a slight look of annoyance cross the elephant's features, but that's about it.

3) Obama's health care plan is still clearly better, McCain's is still clearly insane from the point of view of ordinary Americans.

4) The Joe the Plumber thing might have worked for him if he hadn't kept pushing it so relentlessly, and if he hadn't done that weird self-congratulatory cackling thing over "good news, Joe, you're rich!", and if Obama hadn't stolen his bit by talking directly to "Joe" about the fine--and if this whole exchange hadn't reminded everyone that Obama actually went to Ohio and MET Joe, whereas McCain is just sort of stalking him from a distance.

5) "Class warfare?" Did you really just pull that out? What is this, 1935?

6) The Ayers stuff. It's ridiculous. There's no justification for it and McCain knows that. For him to sit there saying "well I just think the American people need to know all the details" again after Obama's just given them all the details is just...well, I just keep coming back to the word "pathetic."

So, it seems like the PBS talking heads agree, so I can go to bed and perhaps not have nightmares. But anyway, the point here is this: McCain does not seem to be able to sense the mood in the room or to respond to it. He just keeps pushing his bits and he's pleased when he manages to get them out in the right order at hte right time and he has no means of assessing the reaction and adjusting his course. His POV is that if he says what he wants to say, then he wins--regardless of how the general public react. He is always the only important guy in the room, and if in his mind he's killing, then he's killing. Where have I met guys like this before...oh yeah, THAT ONE...

Well. I hope this pushes McCain further down in the polls, because I want a good 20 points separating the two fo them before we go into November.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder