I think I am one of the few people who liked McCain’s speech last night, at least the text of it. It made I think a strong case that he is something different than your average Republican and that Barack Obama is absolutely your average Democrat. It’s the reformer with results image that people have been urging him to take up since the beginning, when he was running around trying to assuage the hard right that he was one of them. However, the aesthetics of it were god awful. The Democrats have learned that having the fake-diverse human backdrop makes the candidate look more appealing than the Bushian floating slogan wallpaper. One aspect that I noticed pretty markedly that has not really gotten much play is that McCain very noticeably laughs at his own punchlines, as if he’s absolutely giddy to get the jab in. McCain has had this problem before. During the Republican debates he made the same half-laugh face whenever he made some witty retort to his opponents(think Romney and the “candidate of change”). It simultaneously undermines the wit of the comment (by making it look practiced and forced) while making it seem mean-spirited and unfunny. Its a really bad habit to have, and if I were in the McCain camp, I would be working hard to fix it before the McCain-Obama debates spring up.
June 5, 2008...2:25 am
McCain’s Smiling Problem
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