As my mother used to say, and she had many occasions to say it, “This room ain’t gonna clean itself.” Barack Obama ain’t gonna make himself unacceptable as a presidential candidate. John McCain has to do it for him. Obama is too skilled a speaker and presenter, his disciplined performance tonight showing newfound mastery of his tendency to ramble into dangerous rhetorical territory. He is operating with a built-in advantage as the “change” candidate from the minority party, a huge party ID advantage, and plenty of money to spend, which he’s using at a 3-to-1 ratio on TV against McCain. The current state of the race finds the two candidates in what should be comfortable roles: Obama, standing back, sounding calm, and avoiding major pitfalls by virtue of avoiding decisive action. McCain, running uphill, facing a huge obstacle, and having to act in decisive (and yes, sometimes risky) ways to prevail. The problem seems to be that McCain doesn’t want to act in the way that most agree is necessary to overcome Obama’s lead. Tonight, McCain looked sincere, offered concrete solutions, cracked a couple jokes, and was generally more correct than Obama on a host of issues, foreign and domestic. But at the end of the night, Obama didn’t look much more (if any more) unacceptable or risky as a presidential candidate than he did before the debate started. McCain accomplished the positive half of his goal by touting his record vs. Obama’s rhetoric on 14 occasions. This is a distinction that must be made, and it’s where McCain likes to argue, but Obama must be portrayed as dangerous, not just do-nothing. The conspicuous absence of Obama’s associations from the discussion suggest McCain just doesn’t want to go there. If that’s the case, his other arguments need to be much more forceful than they were tonight. McCain successfully offered solutions -a spending freeze on everything but military, veteran, and entitlement spending and a new mortgage buy-up plan that will be the talk of the next couple of news cycles (though at first blush it seems to undercut his spending argument)- and proved he’s delivered on promises in the past (“I saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion in a deal for an Air Force tanker that was done in a corrupt fashion.”) McCain did what conservatives have been wanting him to do for a month, going after Obama for being silent while Freddie and Fannie grew, and striking Democrats and Obama for getting fat at the Fannie/Freddie trough instead of battling the problem. I appreciated the mildly Joe Bidenesque repetition of this point: “Senator Obama was the second highest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac money in history, in history.” Left unsaid, however, is the fact that Jim Johnson was Obama’s pick to head up his veep search and that Obama’s vaunted letter came in 2007 as a response to headlines, not as a warning. On tax cuts, McCain threw Obama’s own backtracking in his face: “You know, he said some time ago — he said he would forego his tax increases if the economy was bad. I got some news, Senator Obama: the news is bad.” And, effectively used Obama’s record from Illinois against him: “When he ran for the United States Senate from Illinois, he said he would have a middle-income tax cut. You know, he came to the Senate and never once proposed legislation to do that?” Everyone in the McCain campaign should repeat both points ad nauseum, but with more passion next time around. On foreign policy, John McCain was undoubtedly right, but Obama has become comfortable enough on these issues to fake it effectively. McCain could have used an emotional moment ala last debate’s incredulous lecture on negotiating with Ahmadinejad. When Obama was arguing that we need to fight al Qaeda in Pakistan, and move troops to Afghanistan, McCain correctly pointed out that it is the surge Obama opposed that crushed al Qaeda in Iraq and now allows us to deploy troops elsewhere. McCain’s allowed to get self-righteous about Obama’s attempt to piggy-back on the success of a strategy he actively fought against, and he should. I listen to Obama’s policy prescriptions, and I hear the unacceptable and risky elements through the rhetoric. When I hear him talk about health care, I know he’s incentivizing an involuntary shift to government-funded health care for millions of Americans, while expertly dressing the pitch in empowerment. McCain always touches on this, but doesn’t illustrate the result: “Imagine the United States Congress or the postal service running your health care, if you will.” McCain performed well tonight, but many thought it was his last chance to change the game. A tightening in two polls- 47-43 in a CBS poll, 47-45 in a Zogby poll– suggests we may have counted him out too soon. I sincerely hope that’s the case, but if he’s got a chance at winning, he’s got to make every argument he made tonight (and more), and do it more effectively. McCain may be right more of the time, but he lets Obama get away with entirely too much, and Obama, to use a sports term, converts. I understand McCain’s concerned about how both his temperament and his honor will be portrayed, but Obama is a man who’s happy to run the clock out on this. McCain’s got to be lunging for the steal.
