Obama Coolly Dispatches Punch-Drunk McCain

Posted by Ian Welsh, Firedoglake at 8:17 PM on October 7, 2008.

So, ok, clearly Obama won again. We don't even need to see the polls to know that. He comes across as president already, while John McCain comes across as an angry doddering old man.

Here's what I don't understand. Essentially McCain made the same sort of mistakes he made last time. Not friendly enough, not calm, awful body language and so on. Not a statesman. Not a reassuring elder who's seen it all and who can be trusted to deal with it now.

I don't believe that his handlers don't know this. I don't believe they didn't know this after the first debate. It was dead clear. So, does John McCain not know this? Are they not able to tell it to him? Does he not listen? Why do they not have someone coaching him? Ditch some campaign appearances and spend hours working on his body language, his voice tone and give him answers that are statesmanlike.

Or is John "Maverick" McCain too angry to listen? Too frazzled, too tired, too unable to make a change from a game plan that clearly isn't working. Is it the campaign? Or is it him?

Either way, it's actually kind of sad. What I see in John McCain is an old tired man whose anger doesn't just come from being behind but from having worked beyond capacity for too long. He doesn't have Obama's stamina, nor does he have the sense Obama had in taking a week's holiday to recharge. The best thing that the McCain campaign could do now is to come up with some reason to give him the better part of 3 days off. Let Palin campaign for him, she pretty much does anyway. Let him recover.

I doubt it would matter to the end result, but at least we might not be treated to Obama coolly dismantling what amounts to a punch-drunk McCain who can neither think nor speak straight.

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Tagged as: debate, obama, mccain