McCain's "Edgy and Angry" debate performace: pundits are saying McCain blew it

[amborin]

"HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - by John Harris

John McCain’s challenge at the final debate was to present his case for the presidency in a new light.

But over 90 minutes of intense exchanges with Barack Obama—sometimes compelling, often awkward—-there was very little new light, and no obvious reason for McCain to be optimistic that he has turned his troubled campaign in a new direction.

To the contrary, what McCain offered at Hofstra University was simply a more intense, more glaring version of his campaign in familiar light —- an edgy, even angry performance that in many ways seemed like a metaphor for his unfocused, wildly improvisational campaign.

The Arizona senator threw many punches and sometimes may have landed a few, as when he called Obama out for reneging on a clear promise to accept public financing and the spending limits that go with it.

But just as often Obama smoothly sidestepped the punches, as when he gave what seemed like a plausible and non-defensive answer on how he came to know the ‘60s-era domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and pivoted to boast about the range of advice he seeks from establishment pillars like Warren Buffet on the economy.

More important, what was not evident in all the flailing of arms was a clear or logically consistent case about why McCain should be president and Obama should not be.

McCain in one moment blasted big spending and high taxes, and at the same time called for an unprecedented federal effort to boost home values by buying bad mortgages and renegotiating the terms.

Ayers was important, McCain insisted, not because his association revealed something about Obama’s ideology or patriotism, but simply because he had failed to be forthcoming.

And the mood McCain conveyed was irritable—with repeated sarcastic gibes at Obama—and ....."

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"And the mood McCain conveyed was irritable—with repeated sarcastic gibes at Obama—and sometimes a bit weird, flashing a brittle smile and bulging eyes as Obama was speaking. These were images certain to be aired again and again, from YouTube to Saturday Night Live.

As the evening ended, it was hard to imagine McCain’s performance could have dislodged many current Obama supporters, or impressed many fence-sitters waiting for new arguments or for some new dimension of McCain’s leadership skills to be revealed.

Commentators such as Charles Krauthammer, who has written devastating critiques of Obama, said on Fox News that Obama won the encounter with a poised and mistake-free performance. Fox anchor Brit Hume said some of McCain’s mannerisms were “peculiar.”

<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14620.html>