Thursday, August 28, 2008 - Posts
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The presidential election was getting ugly. In recent weeks, John McCain depicted Barack Obama as an airheaded celebrity. Obama painted McCain as a forgetful fuddy-duddy. McCain called Obama a hypocritical opportunist. Obama went after McCain for his half-dozen houses.
After all that, the moral high ground was looking like a wasteland. But tonight, both candidates scampered back up from their respective ravines.
McCain had everyone expecting a mortar when he announced that he would be airing an ad during Obama’s speech. But the spot was respectful, if a little stilted: “Too often the achievements of our opponents go unnoticed. So I wanted to stop and say congratulations. How perfect that your nomination would come on this historic day.” There’s a cynical reading, certainly—McCain wants to crash Obama’s party under the guise of congrats. But to viewers at home, I’m guessing it read as classy.
Obama, meanwhile, attacked McCain with gusto—he accused him of letting Bin Laden go, hyper-aggression against Russia, and general out-of-touchness. But he drew the line at hypocrisy. “What I will not do,” he said, “is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes.” He also turned next week's RNC theme, “Putting Country First,” on its head. Obama didn’t just say that he prioritizes the nation’s interests before his own. He gave McCain the same benefit of the doubt. “I’ve got news for you, John McCain,” he said. “We all put our country first.”
Sure, both candidates left openings for more pyrotechnics. McCain promised that “tomorrow, we'll be back at it.” Obama promised to set aside personal attacks but still said that McCain “doesn’t get it”—a phrase McCain fans might interpret as a veiled age reference. These lines preview the war to come. But at the very least, both candidates agree on one thing: They want to press the reset button. That is, as long as they come out looking like the magnanimous one.
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While the rest of the media obsess over the fragile diplomacy between the Clinton and Obama camps, Slate V's Andy Bouvé and I uncovered another rivalry here in Denver: Super Delegate vs. Pick Boy. While we found the hapless Super Delegate to be pleasant enough, Pick Boy—a refugee from Nickelodeon’s erstwhile show U-Pick Live—immediately went negative against the competition. These are their stories.
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John McCain’s decision to air an ad tonight during Barack Obama’s speech in which McCain speaks “directly to Obama” is eliciting a combination of indignation, dismissal, accusations of racism, and dismissals of accusations of racism. (He’s also rumored to be leaking his vice presidential announcement at the same time.)
All's fair in love and presidential campaigns, of course, but McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker’s description of the ad almost sounds like parody: “This is an historic ad. I think this is the first of its kind,” she told Mika Brzezinski.
Yes. Tonight will go down in history as the night John McCain aired an ad attacking Obama. Presidential scholars will speak of it for years to come. Because it’s not like there’s anything else of historic note going. (On second thought, I did hear something about a Dairy Queen closing in Spokane.)
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