There has been some groaning among Democratic circles--and in some media organizations--about the fact that Senator Obama said numerous times during the debate that he agreed with John McCain about certain policy matters.
Yes, it's entirely possible to view that through the lens of Obama offering up an opportunity for McCain to claim supremacy in foreign policy issues.
I, by contrast, would claim that Obama's repeated statements of agreement with McCain were, even if unscripted, extremely effective at highlighting one of the chief contrast that the debate brought out: that Barack Obama is ready to lead by finding common ground, while McCain was a grouchy old man who couldn't even acknowledge his opponent.
More below.
At a time when regular citizens are tired of the partisanship in Washington and are looking for who is actually going to provide solutions to problems rather than engaging in even more partisan hackery, there are certainly situations less appealing to the American people than, say, a United States Senator having the temerity to agree with another United States Senator in a public debate forum about both economic and foreign policy issues.
That contrasts strongly with John McCain's debate performance, in which he couldn't even look Obama in the eye for the full 90-minute session:
That was the greatest contrast...the demeanor and the tone of voice that these candidates adopted where McCain was being much more pointed much more aggressive and curiously couldn't look Obama in the eye. Obama's tone much more straight and even keeled but ready to look his opponent in the eye repeatedly. A big contrast.
This is a technique that I practice whenever I can. If you're trying to be persuasive to people who have a different political ideology than you do and don't trust you, the thing you want to do first is establish agreement on issues of common ground. This sends a clear signal that while you may have disagreements on some issues, your perspectives exist for a reason and you do not have a knee-jerk opposition to them on general principle.
This is very important. In a few short months, this country will emerge from the national nightmare of eight uninterrupted years of cowboy diplomacy that did its best to ignore the concerns of other countries and trample the Democratic Party, often simply because it could. The American people have seen the ineffectiveness and counterproductive nature of the politics of Rove and Cheney. The American people are ready for a President who will actually try to get things done and isn't afraid to acknowledge common ground.
To recapitulate: Barack Obama isn't afraid to vocalize areas of agreement with John McCain, but John McCain can't even bring himself to acknowledge Obama's presence on stage.
That said, however, the McCain campaign has released an webad attacking Obama for--of all things--agreeing with John McCain:
In case you can't watch the video, it's a montage of a few of Obama's "I agree with Senator McCain" or some variation thereof, followed by the narration:
Is he ready to lead? No.
Now, the McCain campaign is in essence admitting one of two things, neither of which are good: 1) that agreeing with John McCain specifically about anything indicates an unreadiness to lead, in which case John McCain is the ultimate unready man; or 2) that finding areas of common ground with members of the opposition party inherently indicates an unwillingness to lead.
Certainly, neither of these are good options, but that is the corner that the McCain campaign has pinned itself into.
One last thing: talking about how the other candidate agrees with you is something you should only do when the other candidate is more popular than you and you want to mooch off his or her popularity. With all due respect to Joe Biden--really, Joe, I'm a big fan--it's a tactic pioneered by Joe shortly before he bowed out of the Democratic primary:
There are only two conclusions to draw from the McCain campaign's cross-purpose messaging on this:
They really think they need to continue the past 8 years of hard-line cowboy diplomacy with 4 more years of the "fuck-you" presidency. And I, for one, don't think the American people will buy it.
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