During a town hall meeting in Denver last week, with the GOP faithful getting restless, a woman urged John McCain to go for Obama’s jugular.
“When are you going to take the gloves off and just go at him?” she asked — and nearly 1,000 people leapt to their feet, cheering.
McCain answered: “How ’bout Tuesday night?”
He was referring, of course, to the debate.
Sarah Palin, when asked by New York Times columnist William Kristol this week what advice she’d have for McCain at the debate, said: “Take the gloves off.”
Kristol approved, using it as the kicker for his column, and adding: “Hockey mom knows best.”
It was part of the narrative all week, reinforced by Palin’s frequent mentions of William Ayres. McCain was going to strike back.
And yet at no time during the debate tonight did McCain take the gloves off. Obama hit him first, hit him harder, and hit him more effectively. And he seemed presidential, doing it.
Think, for example, about Obama’s retort, the one time McCain repeated the line about Obama not understanding. You’re right, Obama said. I don’t understand some things — like, for instance, why we went to war in Iraq, when they had nothing to do with 9/11.
Again, he hit McCain for having the bad judgment to lead us into war and predict we’d be hailed as liberators. And, again, McCain had no answer.
In two debates now, McCain hasn’t once defended himself by explaining why he thinks going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do. (He does, by the way. There’s a great article about it in the most recent Atlantic Monthly. McCain believes that pre-emption is the best way to safeguard America against a madman like Hussein, who would use weapons of mass destruction against us and Israel if he was able to obtain them.)
What amazes me is that the McCain campaign would push this line so aggressively in the lead-up to the debate, and that McCain would so thoroughly fail to deliver. It makes him seem, at best, out of touch with his own rhetoric. At worst, it projects weakness instead of strength.
(Much like McCain’s threat not to attend the first debate, which he also eventually backed down on.)
Barack and Michelle stayed for a long time in the debate hall, shaking hands, trying to persaude voters who were still on the fence, smiling, evidently enjoying themselves.
McCain and Cindy left the hall quickly, even with dozens of voters still milling around.
Frankly, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Tags: Debate
I wondered why McCain and Cindy left so quickly. Was there somewhere else they needed to be? Wasn’t this important? He just doesn’t “get it”.
You know Josh, I got the impression that Barack really understood the importance of talking about his plan in this time of crisis. It seemed, at least to me, that he attacked only when it was necesssary.
I don’t understand why people want to see blood shed. It frightens me to think we’re so dumbed down that we would rather watch a WWE match then actually learn why we should vote for one candidate versus another.
I have to say, those people scare the daylight out of me.
Because you know us, JR, you know this: I am married to the guy who might be best called “Joe six pack” – but just because we are average, middle class, blue collar “folks” doesn’t mean we don’t recognize or care about what actually matters to our country. Especially now.