The Obama-McCain Town Hall Meetings That Weren't: An Opportunity Missed

In reporting on interviews he had had with both candidates, David Broder of The Washington Post wrote yesterday that John McCain and Barack Obama "pronounced themselves thoroughly frustrated by the personal bitterness and negativism they have seen in the two months since they learned they would be running against each other."

I trust, or at least I hope, that the candidates weren't actually confessing to being "thoroughly frustrated," since one of them, from the pressure-cooked confines of the Oval Office, is about to learn what real frustration is. But enough of adverbial nitpicking. Broder's introductory point was, simply, that from the two candidates' public-relations point of view there has been, let's call it, an unacceptable level of two-way negativity and attack thus far in the general election campaign. And I gathered that Broder concurred with the candidates, even though Broder's own paper, same day, was running a contradictory piece on that very proposition.

In brief, wrote the Post, so far "McCain has said that his rival would lose a war in order to win a campaign, accused him of going to a gym rather than visiting wounded troops, and ... hinted that Obama has a messiah complex and portrayed him as a celebrity comparable to Paris Hilton or Britney Spears."

And Obama's returned fire so far? Not much, or at least not enough to write home about. Hence Obama's counterattack sluggishness has "raised worries among Democratic strategists," reported the Post. "Interviews with nearly a dozen Democratic strategists found those concerns to be widespread."

"Democrats are worried," said one. "We've been through two very tough elections [Gore and Kerry] at the national level, and it's very easy to lose confidence."

"If somebody attacks you, you have to frame the attack,'" said another. "At the same time you do that, you have to counterattack."

And a "liberal advertising consultant" said: "There's frustration there because they're watching these childish ad campaigns, and they know exactly how to answer it, but they're powerless to do so" -- powerless, they say, because Obama is gobbling up all the political cash and centralizing the campaign's messaging. (In reply, the Obama camp says there's plenty of time to go negative, and if necessary, the best time for it is in the fall, when McCain's publicly financed cash reserves -- meaning his ability to counter-counterattack -- have been drained.)

Notwithstanding this disequilibrium of opinion between Broder and Broder's paper on the manifestly unbalanced levels of attack and negativity, Broder's larger point was that those never-commenced, joint town hall meetings as originally proposed by McCain might well have precluded the overall atmosphere of mutual hostility.

Ever the nonpartisan opinionist, however, Broder let McCain make his point for him: "I'm very sorry about it. I think we could have avoided at least some of this if we had agreed to do the town hall meetings" throughout the summer, said McCain. In the interview Obama responded that the three presidential debates "will allow people to see Senator McCain and myself interact in a way that keeps people more honest because you're standing there face to face."

Upon which Broder wrote: "I told Obama that McCain made exactly that point in arguing for the early joint appearances." Ouch. Obama then pursued this defense: "I think the notion that somehow as a consequence of not having joint appearances, Senator McCain felt obliged to suggest that I'd rather lose a war to win a campaign doesn't automatically follow."

That is indisputably true enough. Still, I find myself in elegiac agreement with Broder on the town hall exterminations -- but not because I'm so naive as to think that such stagecraft would have diminished Republican attacks. In fact, it might well have spiked them.

My lament is only that the electorate lost out on an extended two-way engagement of one-way benefit. Obama, I remain convinced, would have mopped the free-wheeling debate floor with McCain; not because the former is so stupendously brilliant on his feet, but because the latter simply has nothing to offer in the way of national redirection.

This, too, would have shown itself as indisputably true enough. To compensate, the GOP attack machine would have had to whirl away in the highest gear and with exhausting abandon from now till November, but to little effect. Because the electorate, early on, would have witnessed Senator John McCain -- somewhat live and unscripted -- as not so much thoroughly frustrated as thoroughly befuddled.