Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - Posts
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In the beginning, there was “The One.” Now, thanks to an off-hand comment in tonight’s debate, there’s “that one.” The result: One "one" cancels the other "One" out.
McCain was discussing a 2005 energy bill “loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney. You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one,” he said, indicating Obama. “You know who voted against it? Me.”
The Obama camp immediately blasted out a one-liner to reporters: “Did John McCain just refer to Obama as ‘that one’?” In an otherwise forgettable debate, that’s already become the moment, with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe suggesting it reflects McCain’s “anger” and lumping it in with his refusal to look Obama in the eye last debate.
Which is, of course, utterly silly. “That one” is good-natured towel-snapping—another way of saying, Get a load of this guy. Anyone who knows how McCain talks knows this. He was joshing around. It wasn’t particularly funny—but it wasn’t mean-spirited either.
It could still matter, though. McCain’s campaign has had a good chuckle dubbing Obama “The One,” a tweak at the worshipful way some fans treat him. (And, some believe, a hint that he’s the Antichrist.) They’re still laughing, too. Just today, the McCain camp issued novelty cufflinks with a mock presidential seal on one side—a jab at Obama’s campaign seal—and “The One” engraved on the other.
But “that one” could mean the end of “The One.” Now, every time Team McCain resurrects their favorite moniker, Team Obama need only reply, Sorry, which one? Oh, you mean “THAT one.”
It’s a dumb response, but then again, it’s a dumb attack. After all, it takes one to know one.
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Did Obama miss the best pitch he's going to see in this debate? The second question, from a man named Oliver Clark, asked the candidates: "Well, senators, through this economic crisis, most of the people that I know have had a difficult time. And through this bailout package, I was wondering what it is that's going to actually help those people out."
McCain responded first, giving an airy answer about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—institutions, he suggested, the questioner "may never even have heard of ... before this crisis"—and taking a snipe at Obama for his contributions from those institutions. At this point, the moment felt eerily analogous to the most famous question from the 1992 town hall debate below, in which a young woman asked the three candidates how the national debt had personally affected them. (She probably meant the recession.) George H.W. Bush's response (about 20 seconds into the video) was muddled and aloof, and Bill Clinton pounced on the opportunity to give a personal, compassionate-sounding response (2:30 in the video). The exchange was instant presidential-debate lore.
As Jack Shafer wrote in Slate today, Clinton's '92 playbook has more than a few valuable pages in it, and Obama's answer hardly lived up. After a mini economics lesson about frozen credit markets and their effect on business, he flipped the question into an attack on McCain's support for deregulation. The man-of-the-people card may not be Obama's strong point, but one can't help feel that he missed an essential opportunity to connect with voters.
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