The final round

I’ll never understand why the writing classes, who long ago abandoned boxing (like everybody else) still reach for it as a metaphor so frequently. I suppose it is because it proved so fertile for so many better writers of generations past, like Hemmingway, Mailer and Plimpton. Oh well.

The boxing metaphor seemed to be the only one anybody had recourse to last night. Obama, ahead on points, needed to follow those golden rules that every boxer learns as a boy: stick and move, don’t let your guard down, use your jab to keep him out of arm’s reach and clobber him on the healthcare issue. McCain, meanwhile, kept looking for a knockout punch but couldn’t find one and ended-up looking like the broke-dick old tomato-can that he is. The fight was fixed, and McCain had no choice but to drag his ass off the stage and sob quietly to Lindsey Graham “I could have ben a contendah”

Enough with the boxing. As i re-read my post about the last debate, I regretted how long it was. It shows how badly I need an editor. So I will have to self edit, and try to keep this entry much shorter.

I thought John McCain lost the debate; I’m not so sure Obama won.

I thought it was one of Obama’s weakest debate performances in some respects - it reminded me in parts of his last debate with Hillary. He seemed flat and I found it grating the way he laughed and smiled when McCain attacked him. I would have liked to see him respond more forcefully to McCain’s attacks. I don’t think he needed to go tit-for-tat, Keating-for-Ayers, but when McCain said that he had repudiated comments that he thought were over-the-line, Obama missed a chance to make a stronger statement. I thought something like “But John, your running mate says every day that I ‘pal around with terrorists’ and you constantly question my patriotism. I know you can’t repudiate your whole campaign but I don’t see how you can claim to be running an honorable one” would have done very nicely. But that’s me - I’m not as cool-tempered as Obama. I do think there is a slice of the electorate that wont vote for a man who will stand for being attacked like that to his face, but perhaps Team Obama believes that slice to be small, or out of reach. Judging by the worm on CNN, that slice of the electorate is called “men”.

Obama’s approach did succeed in reinforcing the now strong impression that people have of him: he’s calm, he’s smart, he doesn’t take the bait, he knows the issues and most importantly, he’s presidential. Those were clearly the main objectives of the debates for Obama and he accomplished them. Hopefully, that will be enough.

McCain on the other hand had a tough night. He seemed to be scoring points in the first 30 minutes, and I wondered that whole time whether he was winding up for the long-awaited knockout blow, but he couldn’t (to mix a metaphor) get the bat off his shoulder. He seemed trapped by the whole Ayers thing - forced to bring it up for fear of looking weak otherwise but unable to push his point for fear of appearing negative. When Obama calmly rebutted his points about Ayers and ACORN, McCain went literally into overblink. It seemed as though McCain’s goal had been to make Obama lose his cool. When it didn’t, he lost his instead. He sputtered and stuttered and rolled his eyes and licked his lips and, most of all, he blinked - more than 3000 times according to one count. I’m not joking. I’ve seen strobe lights that blinked less.

My favorite moment was during the exchange on healthcare. Obama did well with the worm showing his grasp of how healthcare really works and how his policies would help. He was boring and a bit meandering at times, but the overall impression was that he gets it. McCain, by contrast, seemed to have only a nodding familiarity with the details of his own healthcare policy. He went back once more - once too often as it turned out - to Joe the plumber and asked Obama how big a fine he was going to give him for not providing healthcare to his non-existent employees (remember, Joe is the guy who would like to buy the small business he works for but can’t). Obama stared straight into the camera and told Joe how big his fine would be: zero. “Zero?!” gulped McCain and then sat for 10 or so seconds just blinking, blinking, dumbfounded. He couldn’t even close his mouth. Lawyers say that in cross-examination you should never ask a question unless you know the answer. This probably means McCain shouldn’t ask any questions at all, and that might have been a better strategy last night. After that exchange, McCain was deflated and everybody just wanted to look away.

The discussion on abortion also showed McCain’s Elmo-like grasp of subtle domestic issues, when he mocked the idea of protecting the mother’s “health” (as he put it in air quotes). I also wonder whether he knows the difference between autism, the condition he incessantly referenced in relation to special needs children, which Sarah Palin knows so much about, and Down Syndrome, which Sarah Palin’s special needs child actually has?

But cruelest of all were the split-screen visuals. McCain: old, short, stiff, snarling, blinking, angry, pale white, confused. Obama: young, fit, strong, tall, lean, relaxed, appealing, energetic.

I’m still concerned that the race could be up-ended and that Obama could lose. I think people will fall in love with the idea of a John McCain comeback (although, to quote an Australian politician from twenty years ago “that would be like Lazarus with a triple bypass”) and forgive him the sins of the campaign so far. I also think there is some strength in the argument that an Obama-Reid-Pelosi government would be a “runaway train” - I just don’t know whether McCain has undermined his ability to mount that argument by lurching from one message to another for the last 6 weeks.

But if voters walk in to the booth with that split-screen visual in their heads, Obama should be the next president.