Presumed GOP presidential nominee John McCain has called on Barack Obama to have a series of informal joint Town Hall question and answer meetings, with the first one to be June 12.
Evidently, Obama's people are interested, and teams from the two camps are working out the details. Understandably, Obama's people favor more of a classic Lincoln and Douglas debate format, where the candidates each do a lengthy presentation with rebuttals. Obama is at his best with a teleprompter and prepared remarks.
McCain has proposed fewer canned remarks and greater audience participation. Presumably, this would bring out McCain's strength of spontineity and short, punchy quips, and expose Obama's dull and ponderous answers so evident in the debates with Hillary, as his lack of experience makes answering spontaneous questions difficult.
This all might be fun for a season, but just as the Democratic debates got overworked and became routine with low audiences, undoubtedly the Town Hall format would wear out too. Once the debaters get to know each other and how each responds to what questions, the freshness wilts.
Face-to-face encounters have their place in the campaign, but a big part is rallying the troops in the field. This isn't done in debates, but in rallys and meetings of the loyal, committed folks.
That's what will swing the election--who gets their vote out, and has the fired-up troops on the ground to do that.
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Until McCain puts together a ground game of passionate supporters like Obama has, he won't stand a chance.
I am amused by anyone who thinks McCain is smarter than Obama in unscripted situations. Obama yanked himself up by his bootstraps to become president of the Harvard law Review, while McCain was a legacy admission to Annapolis, and barely got out of the place, sixth from last in his class.
McCain has screwed up everything he has touched, and had to marry a lot of money (did anyone mention that he cheated on his first wife?) to get a foothold in politics.
McCain is confused about who is who in Iraq, and what the economy actually does. He wants more wars, although there isn't any more army to fight them. He is a target rich envoironment all by himself.
Obama in a romp.
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