I don’t think it matters if Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama “won” the debate on Friday. No one’s told me what it means to “win” a presidential debate anyway. Certainly not on the issues. Certainly not on honesty.
What mattered to me in watching McCain and Obama debate was seeing how they interacted with each other and with the audience. It helps me imagine what a McCain or Obama presidency would look like. After following the campaigns since they started in 2007 and the first debate, I’ve got a general idea.
Senator John McCain is erratic, temperamental and arrogant. Andrew Sullivan, among others, has noticed that McCain never looked Obama in the eye the entire debate. McCain’s dislike for Obama is obvious. Refusal to make eye contact, condescension bordering on rudeness and a willingness to lie and distort Obama’s record to win reflect McCain’s personalization of this presidential contest. The McCain campaign even recognizes that their candidate might have come across as too mean during the debates. Mark Salters, a McCain campaign senior aide, told the press today that “[John McCain] stayed on offense in a respectful way.” Obviously, he wouldn’t have to reassure the press and the public that McCain was respectful if they weren’t afraid of giving off the opposite perception.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, has shown himself to be calm (maybe too calm), obviously intellectual and a bit opaque. Never flustered and always even handed, Obama gave the impression of being more responsible and thoughtful. He even gave credit to John McCain several times in the debate when credit was due or because he wanted to appear gracious and humble. Ironically, the McCain campaign released a nonsensical ad that showed debate clips of Obama saying “I have to agree with John” and then displaying the words “Is he ready to lead?”
Now, the question is how relevant are the candidates’ temperaments and interests to how they’ll run the White House?. Historically, they’ve been a good predictor of the general character of a presidency.
George W. Bush is renowned for his anti-intellectualism (although Sarah Palin makes him look like a Rhodes Scholar). In the 2000 campaign, he could barely name any important foreign leaders. Consequently, his presidency has shown a reckless disregard for truth – the war in Iraq, illegal wiretapping, whatever Jon Stewart talks about.
Bill Clinton was notoriously disorganized and undisciplined, hence the famous image of him sweating and running on a treadmill in the 1992 campaign. As a result, looking back, his presidency didn’t change the ideological trajectory of the American public, and he almost got impeached for breaking his marital vows and lying about it.
Ronald Reagan didn’t pay attention to details and consequently appeared to have no idea that some of his staff members were secretly selling weapons to Iran.
Nixon, as many biographers have noted, hated people from the Ivy League schools that rejected him and in turn personalized politics to the degree that he was willing to break the law to win.
This puts McCain’s campaign actions and words in a context. Only John McCain knows why he disdains Obama, but it’s undeniable that he does. He’s accused Obama of not funding for the troops, of not wanting to visit them unless pictures could be taken and that Obama wants sex-ed for kindergarteners. This willingness to not just distort the truth, but to outright lie about it, resembles the kind of Rovian tactics that made Bush famous in 2000 and 2004, and this personalization of politics recalls Nixon’s hatred of political opponents.
Obama, on the other hand, has shown he can take a punch. He didn’t overreact or appear to be angry when McCain would smile and begin every attack with “my friends, Senator Obama does not understand…” Instead, he smiled and put his hands together. So, Obama doesn’t have a glass jaw and can take a punch. He repeatedly looked John McCain in the eye and gave his opponent credit where credit was due.
How candidates run their campaigns is the best indicator of how they’ll be president. As such, a McCain presidency will be erratic and volatile at a time when the world is not simply divided between good and evil, friends and enemies, and democracies and terrorists. With a resurgent Russia, a raging Iran and a rising China, there are many ways to start a war and only a few ways to maintain the peace. It takes a steady hand to refrain from personalizing politics to lead America, not a man who allegedly looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and saw “a K, a G, and a B.” In politics, everything may be personal, but in running a country, nothing should be.
