I don't know which side is feeling more desperate: the McCain camp for having proposed the idea of a series of "unmoderated debates" throughout the summer, or the Obama camp for having seemingly accepted it.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
True, it's a vastly appealing idea -- the New York Times calls it "a sign of what could be an extremely unusual fall campaign"; "an idea that is by any measure unconventional" -- especially for anyone who covers politics, because the potential for impromptu, column-filling gaffes is limitless.
And then there's that civics stuff about vigorous democracy and an informed electorate, blah, blah, blah. Truth is, though, voters tune in mainly for the same reason they watch NASCAR; they anticipate a mangling collision or one of the candidates careening off the track in a blaze of smoke, fire and fury.
Yet, unfortunately, the open-debate proposal is only at the idea stage and it's not improbable that it shall remain there. The reporting says it was "floated by Mr. McCain’s advisers," so the former may not even have been aware of what was about to swirl around him, and the only indication of Obama having picked up the gauntlet was his response that it's "a great idea," which was what he said about public financing, too. So there the idea sits, and there it may stay.
Still, it is axiomatic in politics that whichever camp proposes a series of debates is the camp that has taken a good, long look at its internal polling and consequently feels desperate beyond measure -- even to the point of unleashing its candidate before voters without a script. And in this instance that camp is, happily, McCain's.
The dance then proceeds thusly: the opposing camp immediately ripostes that it's "a great idea," and, well, it'll take an even longer look at it only to assure itself that it benefits, above all others, the gaping multitudes. Don't call it; it'll call you. And that's the end of it; it's consigned to obscurity and finally oblivion.
Yet, again, in this instance it is reported only that the Obama camp believes it to be an exceedingly marvelous thing -- there was no reference to the senator needing to weigh its pros and cons, you know, for the voters' benefit. Which would further suggest the opposing camp -- Obama's, that is -- is equally nervous and therefore willing to go out on a limb to bring up some numbers or break a perceived deadlock.
But, perhaps the reporting in this instance just didn't go far enough. Maybe Obama's camp has no intention of staging "unmoderated debates" and that fact just didn't make the papers. We really don't know yet.
What we do know, however, is that somebody at McCain's HQ was nervously unhinged enough to propose such a thing, and that in itself is exceedingly marvelous.
They must be worried in Arizona.
If I were handling a candidate like, oh, let's say, Senator John McCain -- a candidate with a penchant for saying incomparably stupid things off the cuff and losing his famous temper whenever control of the situation is lost -- the last bloody thought I would ever entertain is that of propping him up on a stage for two or three months against a gleaming, handsome young intellectual and letting him rip extemporaneously. There would not be enough scotch, Valium and unfiltered cigarettes to see me through such a season.
Unless, that is, I had just spent the last few days poring over some excruciatingly painful polling results that left me -- and my candidate -- with absolutely no choice. It's either risk it, or watch the numbers go a little farther south with each passing day.
I won't play the age card. As far as I know, John McCain's mental faculties are all in working order. It's just that those faculties have never seemed to work that well -- not that the accumulating years have had any noticeable, unwanted accumulated effect. He's always had a big, uncontrolled mouth that spouts the most curiously unthoughtful things, which only now a lot of people are increasingly taking note of.
He doesn't need John Hagee, for he is, in many ways, his own Jeremiah Wright.
And may God grant us the enticing opportunity to watch him in unmoderated, uncontrolled, unscripted action, all summer long. It is this, I imagine, that Obama was thinking when he responded that it's "a great idea."
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