As everyone knows, Senator John McCain was fortunate to run against a field filled with jackasses. To his credit (I suppose), McCain did what he had to do in order to secure the GOP nomination by the beginning of March, including lying about Mitt Romney's position on the war in Iraq.
John McCain has a series of unfortunate events working against him, not the least of which is a very strong opponent and a very unpopular president to whom McCain can easily be tied. But perhaps McCain's strongest opponent is his inability to read.
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Tomorrow's New York Times has an often hilarious article about McCain's struggles with the Teleprompter, and speech delivery in general. Never was the contrast between Barack Obama and McCain more apparent than June 3, when one addressed the nation in front of 20,000 Americans and the other did so in front of a green screen:
The bad news is that McCain's campaign has figured out that this presents a potential problem going forward:
Mr. McCain and his advisers know that Mr. Obama’s ability to excite huge crowds will make for an inevitable podium mismatch for the older, softer-spoken Republican. "We’re going up against a guy who is off the charts," said Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s longtime Senate chief of staff and campaign adviser.
We all know that "looking presidential" can sometimes mask some of a candidate's less serious flaws; the best example of this is 1960, when it's widely accepted that the radio audience considered Nixon the winner of the first debate, while the TV crowd preferred Kennedy. But in 2008, the contrast could have an even stronger effect than usual. James Carville's 1st rule of politics is "Change vs. more of the same" and it's been Obama's mantra all along. It'll be much easier to frame the debate this way against a candidate who, frankly, looks old than it would've been against Mitt Romney.
Fixing this problem will require physical training as well as an attitude adjustment for Senator McCain:
Mr. McCain is working closely with aides like Brett O’Donnell, a former debate consultant for Mr. Bush, to improve his speech and performance. He is working to limit his verbal tangents and nonverbal tics. He is speaking less out of the sides of his mouth, which can produce a wiseguy twang reminiscent of the Penguin from the Batman stories, and he is relying less on his favorite semantic crutch — the phrase "my friends" — which he used repeatedly in his campaign appearances. He also appears to be trying to exercise restraint, advisers and campaign observers say, when speaking off the cuff, wisecracking in town meetings and criticizing his opponent. In recent weeks, for example, Mr. McCain seems to have reined in the sarcasm he has directed at Mr. Obama. (In May, for example, he said of his opponent, "With his very, very great lack of experience and knowledge of the issues, he’s been very successful.")
There's an incentive to stop being a miserable old bastard: he's coming across as one, and people are starting to notice.
The article goes on a bit about how quickly videos can go viral; indeed, Jed's video of the "bottled hot water" misstatement probably had 10,000 views before McCain finished the freakin speech.
Many of us will revel in this, but let me warn you: there's danger lurking around the corner. McCain's campaign is going to try and use it to his advantage (the fact that he can't read a Teleprompter, that is).
Mr. McCain’s advisers, who bristle at the idea that they are trying to transform the candidate, say that his lack of smoothness merely reinforces his reputation for authenticity.
"Voters are looking for credibility and are wary of polish," said Mark McKinnon, a former consultant to Mr. McCain’s campaign. "At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter which candidate can more deftly read a teleprompter."
Indeed, Mr. McCain and his advisers seem to be trying to present him as a kind of anti-Obama whose weaknesses as a political performer underscore his accessibility to regular voters.
"John doesn’t ever want to be something that he is not," Mr. Salter said, including trying to pass himself off as a larger-than-life figure on stage. "There’s nothing in there about him that wants to be rarefied."
I don't care what McCain's aides say in public, this has to be a concern. I think Barack Obama should be careful not to overplay his hand; as much as McCain enjoys his town halls and roundtable discussions, Barack Obama is every bit his equal in small-time politics, as he demonstrated so wonderfully in Montana yesterday. But this is a built-in advantage, and I firmly believe that events like the historic rally in Oregon or the potential outdoor acceptance speech in front of 75,000 in Denver will create the kind of impression on undecided voters that they'll carry right into the voting booth.