Greeeat comment!!!

Barack isn't scary. He proved that to folks in the debate.

LOL about the monkey scientist! I'm no monkey scientist, but we had a few cats when I was growing up… I can concur, that the submissive male never makes eye contact with the more aggressive male…and keeps his head slightly lowered when in close proximity.

Why not show a picture of someone from Freddie Mac? Or AIG? Or Bear Sterns? Or AIG? Or the head of the SEC, who McCain says should be fired?

Why, out of all people, was Raines chosen to be the “face” of the mortgage crisis? If it's not because Raines is black, then what is the reason?

Obama Agreed Too Much? SO WHAT!?!

This is the clearest case of the pundits getting it all wrong. Chris Matthews of MSNBC threw a hissy fit that Obama “agreed so much with McCain.”

Can there be a sillier “issue” than this? Think about this people: if Obama agrees with McCain on certain things, then that also means McCain agrees with Obama on the same things… how is that a problem for Obama?

Americans don't care about where the candidates agree; they care about where they disagree. Obama did the viewers a service: by not wasting time on false or petty disagreements, it was easier for viewers to see what the actual issues are between the candidates.

And even more, it may have helped Obama in an unanticipated way. Many people who saw the debate observed that McCain was condescending and sarcastic. That feeling was no doubt heightened by Obama's willingness to voice agreement when it was appropriate to do so.

In other words: Obama showed gravitas; McCain showed hubris. As noted by Time in its write-up on their debate focus group of undecideds,

The audience did not like it when McCain went after Obama for being “naïve” or used his oft-repeated “what Senator Obama doesn't understand” line. When the two clashed directly in the second half of the debate, with Obama repeatedly protesting McCain's characterization of his statements or positions, the voter dials went down. Voters appear to have judged McCain too negative in those encounters and Obama more favorably.

That's why I have to laugh at this post-debate McCain campaign commercial that says “McCain is Right” because Obama agreed with him several times during the debate. I guarantee, that will not resonate as much as this ad from Obama, titled the “Zero” ad, which observed that during the 90 minute debate, McCain never once used the words “middle class.”

These ads show the ongoing strategy of the two campaigns. The McCain campaign is trying to make this an election about personality and character; the Obama campaign is making this a campaign about issues, particularly the economy.

To the McCain campaign, I say: good luck with that. Their problem is, McCain is accumulating a lot of baggage concering his own character:
• The press is taking the McCain campaign to task for its false and misleading campaign ads.
• In the Luntz/Fox focus group that was mentioned earlier, almost all felt that McCain's faux campaign suspension earlier in the week was a political stunt and not a principled stand.
• Most voters think McCain chose Palin as his running mate to help him win in November, not because she is well-qualified for the job.

A theme is emerging: McCain is a “bad character” who will say or do anything to get elected. McCain's dismissive and condescending attitude in the first debate certainly didn't do much to make people feel better about him. Isn't it ironic? In his attempt to win based on personality, McCain is making himself disreputable to the voters.

SO: was the debate a big win for Obama? No. But Obama had the lead in the polls before the debate, so even a so-so performance is good for him. Perhaps the McCain campaign can take solace in the fact that the pundits gave him a thumbs-up for his debate performance. But I think the Obama campaign is more than happy to get a similar gesture from the American public.

And here's another note from TPM Reader TB. I guess I'm really not sure quite how to characterize it …
<indent> I think people really are missing the point about McCain's failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear–look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior–low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that.</indent>

So McCain may have given away his status as a low-ranking monkey. I'd never even considered monkey rank.

Late Monkey Science Update: In case anyone's wondering, I looked up TPM Reader TB's page at the University he teaches at. And no doubt about it, he appears to be a genuine monkey scientist, or to be more specific a researcher on social cognition and behavior in primates. I'd link to his page. But readers remain anonymous, save for their initials, until they tell us otherwise.

::

Talk about turning the monkey smear on its head.