The Human Conspiracy Blog-space

Print Version link: http://jaygaskill.com/DebateThreeTrumanAndDewey.htm

THE GREAT DEBATE
Truman vs. Dewey Redux?

 
NOTE: This famous photo is copyright by the New York Times and a print can be obtained at http://www.nytstore.com/ . 

The race for POTUS has a certain thematic resemblance to the 1948 Truman vs. Dewey election - no, I’m not old enough to have first-hand knowledge of Give-‘em-hell Harry’s surprise comeback, but I am a student of the period.

{For a quick history review, go to this link: http://www.kennesaw.edu/pols/3380/pres/1948.html .}
 

Today, we have the smooth talking, good looking guy who went to all the good schools and who is favored to win in the Dewey casting role, against a plain spoken patriot with more grit than eloquence, more experience than charisma.  Of course the party affiliations are reversed. And there are other variables, not the least of which are the tidal change in public attitudes that have created the red state – blue state schism, and all those tectonic shifts in social outlook (too many to catalogue here) since the immediate post-WWII period.
 

Actually, Senator Obama’s politics is more like that of Henry Wallace the proto-Marxist whom FDR dumped from the ticket as too radical, while John McCain is actually very close to Harry Truman’s political mindset (allowing for all the obvious differences in circumstances).

As I watched the last debate in a hotel room, I was disappointed. [A friend, who supports Obama, but admires McCain, was not. For him, the Arizona senator’s spirited attacks made the exercise more informative and interesting.]
 

I have studied the art of forensic argument and I’ve debated competitively, an avocation that was followed by a career as a trial lawyer. So I am a tough critic. 

I was disappointed, in part, because McCain - though more aggressive than before - still assumed that his audience knows as much Beltway gossip, argot and lore as his campaign wonks do. This made him seem oblique and sometimes even disjointed.  

Don't get me wrong - I don't buy into the "McCain is too old" narrative. This was a problem in debate training, experience and style – Rudi Giuliani would have taken candidate Obama apart (figuratively speaking and with a predatory grin) as would have Ronald Reagan (with an "ah-shucks" smile)-- or even Fred Thompson (with the courtly manner of a fatherly senior prosecutor talking to a wet behind the ears Deputy DA).
 

Instead, I was left with the uncomfortable image of McCain as the pit bull on a chain without lipstick, growling and challenging his opponent to fight, and Obama as the target that couldn’t be bothered to engage.   
 

I suspect that John McCain is best at talking one-on-one with reasonable people, or delivering prepared speeches to audiences he understands.  
 

But Senator Obama wasn't talking to McCain at all – he was just orating a well constructed patter to the camera, as triggered by the subjects under discussion, almost all of which were foreseen by his handlers. For McCain, the problem was that it really was well constructed patter, well delivered.

While watching, I entertained a vision of John McCain’s brain. He showed up brimming with advice and points not yet made.  All that "must say" material was queued up inside the senator’s hyperactive cognitive apparatus, jostling for a chance to get out first, crowding into an impossibly narrow time frame.  In fact, most of it did find its way out not necessarily in answer to the pending question), but in a sort of staccato shorthand.