Sixty or so members of the Drinking Liberally, Charlotte chapter along with various others converged last night to watch the much heralded debate.
Our expectations: a mixed bag, given the tumult surrounding McCain's fake suspension of his campaign.
Our hopes: that Obama would show that he is presidential and knowledgeable.
Our fears: McCain would defy logic and somehow pull out a win.
Our reality: Below the fold.
There are a ton of diaries that score the debate, and highlight some of the key moments. But for me, the real significance of the debate was on style. John McCain refused to look Barack Obama in the eyes. This says a lot about a person.
How can McCain expect to deal with world leaders, both who's names he can pronounce and not pronounce, if he cannot look them in the face? I don't trust anyone who does not look at me when they speak to me. Period!
Obama noticed this behavior very early in the debate. And his response was to make this contrast in style more pronounced. At every turn, Obama addressed McCain as "John." The use of someone's first name connotes some amount of personal connection. So as Obama repeated McCain's first name in his responses and McCain refused to look at Obama, it made me very uncomfortable with McCain.
In hindsight, it would have been great if Obama would have said "John, look at me, I am talking to you!"
Did any of you have a similar subconscious, visceral feeling?
Update: From Talking Points Memo
And here's another note from TPM Reader TB. I guess I'm really not sure quite how to characterize it ...
I think people really are missing the point about McCain's failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear--look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior--low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that.
So McCain may have given away his status as a low-ranking monkey. I'd never even considered monkey rank.
Late Monkey Science Update: In case anyone's wondering, I looked up TPM Reader TB's page at the University he teaches at. And no doubt about it, he appears to be a genuine monkey scientist, or to be more specific a researcher on social cognition and behavior in primates. I'd link to his page. But readers remain anonymous, save for their initials, until they tell us otherwise.
--Josh Marshall