60 Seconds Over Memphis

At the risk of giving fodder to a symposium on superficial campaign coverage, here's my quick take on the 2008 contenders who spoke at the Memphis job fair:

George Allen: It was just after 8:30 a.m. when the Virginia senator spoke, but despite the early hour, he had the crowd out of their seats regularly. It's not that he's an eloquent speaker, but he does pay dutiful attention to the familiar hot buttons. Rail against spending? Check. Invoke Reagan? Check. Hate estate tax? Check. Allen even used '80s-style anti-Communist lingo when talking about the "commissars" in Connecticut who snatched private land. Up close, he's personable in the way George Bush is. And he has handshaking and back-slapping down to an art, though he sometimes does it with such gusto that he crosses the line from politician to masseur.

Bill Frist: The Senate majority leader's speech was so safe he should have been wearing a crash helmet. Frist praised himself for being a leader and taking charge. His smile, which was unsettling at times, got downright creepy when he flashed it after boasting that he threatened to use the "nuclear option." None of this would matter if campaigns were like antiseptic operating rooms, but without a little more soul and art on the stump, Frist's candidacy is likely to have an anesthetic affect.

Mike Huckabee: Hack journalists and lazy voters look at politicians and ignore their policy proposals. When you look at the Arkansas governor you think: I need to go to the gym. Huckabee has lost more than 100 pounds and looks like maybe he should stop now or there won't be anything left to elect. The crowd seemed to like both his cultural conservatism and his folksy jokes. Away from the podium, he has the ready motivational phrases you might expect from a guy disciplined enough to sweat off all of that weight. ("Attitude determines altitude!" he said at one point.) He also demonstrated a potentially deadly political desire to think through his answer to reporters' questions rather than concocting immediate anodyne responses.

John McCain: Following the crowd-pleasing former Rep. J.C. Watts was like being Zsa Zsa Gabor's fifth husband, McCain said. He knew what to do; he just didn't know how to make it interesting. Much of the room laughed. Some of the room frowned and continued to do so as he made a few more salty quips. McCain is never going to get the frowners anyway. They either don't think he's socially conservative enough or think his public support for Bush is phony. But a lot of the room appreciated McCain's seemingly boundless and unsubtle support for his old adversary. He attacked those who accuse the president of lying about Iraq before the war, asked the audience to vote for the president in the straw poll, to stand with him as commander in chief, and to support Bush in pressuring Iran. "This is serious stuff," he said of Iran. "Stay behind the president on this."

Mitt Romney: Romney is so polished on the stump his handlers are going to have to schedule a lot of whimsical, impromptu off–the-record moments of natural expression during the campaign. This might have been the goal when Romney opened his speech by singing the lyrics to "Davy Crockett" and altering the last line to, "Doctorrrr, Doctor Bill Frist, king of the wild frontier." This sucking up to the hometown favorite coupled with Clark Griswold goofiness made me want to dive under the desk out of embarrassment for Romney and mankind. The audience didn't care. They liked him and were still talking about him two days later.