Tonight John McCain got his chance at the coveted Town Hall style debate with his political opponent Barack Obama. In recent months we have been advised incessantly by the McCain campaign of the inherent superiority possessed by Sen. McCain in the Town Hall format. The candidate's performance clearly demonstrated that nothing could be further from the truth.
The nation witnessed in this debate two completely different expressions of leadership. On the one hand it could be said that the calm, deliberate, measured performance of Sen. Obama inspired confidence in a visionary and well mapped out plan for the direction he would choose to lead America. On the other hand Sen. McCain relied solely on the rhetoric of fear, innuendo and patronization.
The over use of “My friends” has become no more than an insincere show business gimmick and always seems to precede some expression of inconsequential grandfatherly advise that aims toward telling voters how the supposedly wizened Sen. McCain grasps the intricacies of life and politics that we the people just don't understand. The constant drum beat of “My friends, I know how to catch Bin Laden, I know how to fix the economy, I know how fix the health care crisis” is never, ever followed by any explanation of what his self proclaimed knowledge base would have us do. Could we accept on face value that McCain does have some secret understanding or information that would help America capture the most wanted or repair the credit crisis or provide solutions for an increasing number of financially desperate Americans, would we simply then overlook his withholding such information from the nation until January 2009 or perhaps even until January 2012 should he fail in his bid for the Presidency. Such a withholding of information could only be considered treasonous while Americans are fighting and dying overseas.
Sen. McCain's campaign has made no secret of their belief in the candidate's strength as someone who can connect with voters on a personal level due to his past performance in the Town Hall type venue. Their distorted sense of reality becomes painfully present when we witness the Senator in a room that is not, for once, packed full of his ardent supporters, but with some degree of a cross section of voters. The bloom fades quickly from a rose not being coddled by handlers and portrayed through the lens of a severely restricted spectrum of Americans. The faded bloom further decomposes with repeated exposure to the half whispering voice of the candidate in a seeming attempt to “educate” what he must consider as an unsophisticated public regarding some bit of complexity not otherwise understood without the assistance of Sen. McCain. Or, perhaps the whispering is designed to portray some overlay of the sinister to this contest, emphasizing the recent McCain tactic of “do we really know who this Obama fella is?” Either way, reality plays no role in the choice of tactics used.
Reality can be a peculiar concept in political discourse and is often times set aside or distorted in favor of perceived gains to be made in public opinion. Moral and ethical difficulty arises when such choices are made to deceive. The practical difficulty arises when this setting aside or distortion is not based on the choice as strategy, but in an unwillingness to see, or unawareness of reality and truth. The McCain campaign is apparently guilty of both as regards Sen. McCain's talents in the Town Hall format. Sen. McCain's willing participation in such a faulty assertion is a stark portrayal of his distorted sense of reality, a characteristic rendering him unfit for duty as President.
