A lot has been written and said in recent weeks about the various problems and mistakes of John McCain’s presidential campaign. One of the few things that the campaign has gotten right is knowing that Americans still appreciate a little self-deprecating humor, which McCain himself specializes in.

Arizona’s senior senator showed this side again last night with his appearance on Saturday Night Live. My favorite moment was during the opening skit, when McCain and Sarah Palin/Tina Fey go on QVC (the only network his campaign can afford, unlike Barack Obama) to carry their message to voters and hock a few election-related items. I laughed out loud when McCain offered up some “Fine Gold” jewelry and the camera panned right to Cindy McCain dressed business-smart and pointing to fancy-looking gold chains on manikin necklines. Cindy’s appearance fit the scene perfectly and illustrated why the McCains have been popular with many Arizonans for so many years. Say what you want about McCain, he has a way of coming off as humble and just like you and me, despite his extensive military record, his wife’s wealth or his life spent in Washington’s inner circles.

BOB BARR (LEFT) AND RALPH NADER

Political junkies looking for special entertainment can catch a couple of the third-party candidates for president tangle Thursday afternoon, as independent Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr are scheduled to debate in Cleveland. The sponsor, The City Club of Cleveland, says Chuck Baldwin from the Constitution Party also will attend the event, which is supposed to start at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Arizona time.

Both Barr and Nader waged a heavy three-week campaign in September and early October through the mainstream media and YouTube videos in an effort to join at least one of the three debates between John McCain and Barack Obama. But they were ignored by the major campaigns and no outside political pressure was applied. So much of the public was denied at least one opportunity to hear a few alternative views to the typical Democratic-Republican tango.

Steve Siton, the Barr’s campaign communication director, was excited when I spoke to him about Thursday’s debate and the possibility of getting at least a little national attention. He also claimed that McCain’s campaign, at least, is clearly worried about the impact that Barr might have on Tuesday’s general election.

“About damn time, isn’t it?” Siton said. “For two weeks now, Bob Barr has been the tie-breaker covering the spread between those other candidates in the battleground states. John McCain shows up wherever we go. I can get Sarah Palin to your town faster than the RNC (Republican National Committee).”

Siton said a news release from the City Club expected C-SPAN to broadcast the debate. But the event wasn’t listed on C-SPAN’s daily schedule, so it’s possible such a broadcast could delayed until the middle of the night. If you want to be sure to hear it live, Restore the Republic Radio is promising to carry it as an Internet audio feed, and the sound quality was quite good when I tuned in briefly today.

Sen. John McCain was thrilled to speak to an enthusiatic Arizona crowd after a successful run of the Super Tuesday primaries in February 2008 (Tribune file photo).

Arizona Sen. John McCain will be here in the Valley for the biggest night of his political career — after the polls have closed on the 2008 election. The McCain election night party will be at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa, the same spot where McCain celebrated his big Super Tuesday win during the primaries in Feburary. The room was packed that night, and obviously there should be even more Arizonans who will want to see McCain as the general election returns come in.

But this Associated Press story says Arizona fans at the party will have to watch McCain give his election night speech on television like the rest of the world. In an odd departure from tradition, McCain is planning to speak from a spot on the Biltmore lawn outdoors, surrounded only by a few supporters and a limited number of media reporters.

One government college professor told AP that McCain might be forced into this as the Biltmore space isn’t all that big (which I can attest to) and an election night speech is for TV cameras anyway. However, the move also seems to fit the view offered by Libertarian candidate Bob Barr today that McCain now is expecting to lose to Sen. Barack Obama.

But I’m certainly not counting McCain out, not after seeing the new AP poll implying that the race might be tighter than other polls are showing.

 (AP Photo)

I caught Sen. John McCain tonight on the David Letterman Show on CBS, taking his medicine for cancelling a similar appearance two weeks ago as part of McCain’s short-lived “suspension” of his presidential campaign to deal with the national financial meltdown. Letterman was upset by the last-minute disappearance. But he got downright angry when he learned during the taping of that show that McCain hadn’t actually left New York for Washington, but instead went a couple of blocks over for an interview with CBS news anchor Katie Couric.

Letterman got a lot of comedic mileage out of the faux pas with a relentless pounding of McCain for several nights. But I wondered if Letterman would back off with McCain rescheduling and actually showing up this time. Nope! Most of Letterman’s jokes in the monolouge were fired right at the Arizona senator. The funniest was a camera shot into the wings where MSNBC Countdown anchor (and huge McCain critic) Keith Olbermann was waiting to jump in if McCain didn’t show again (Olbermann filled in for McCain two weeks ago).

Then, Letterman gentled harangued the senator once he got on stage. At least McCain didn’t dodge his responsibility. When Letterman asked for McCain’s explanation, he said simply, “I screwed up.”

McCain likely expected a quick joke or two at his expense and then by-gones would be by-gones. Instead, he was in for a long night. Once Letterman finally let the canceled appearance drop, he grilled McCain over and over about selecting Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate. Letterman’s questions honed in on Palin’s experience, or lack thereof, and Letterman’s conviction that she’s not prepared to lead the country through another terrorist attack like 9/11.

McCain did take the opportunity to give the longest and most detailed justification I’ve heard from him about Palin. McCain’s list of Palin’s strengths include her reputation as a reformer, her growth from a PTA mom to mayor and then governor, her willingness to challenge (and defeat) an incumbent from her own party when she saw her state going in the wrong direction, and her huge popularity in Alaska today.

In all, it seemed like rather painful experience for McCain. But he took his lumps and he probably won’t have Letterman hounding him for the next 18 days of the campaign.

 (AP Photo)

If John McCain goes on to win this election, I believe pundits will point to tonight’s town-hall style debate as the starting point of his come-from-behind drive. McCain made from a huge jump up from the first debate in that he was more personable and human, serious when he needed to be, but he ably worked in some humor at several points. McCain also knew when to break the debate rules for a good cause, such as when he interrupted Tom Brokaw to quickly point out that Barack Obama had failed to address McCain’s earlier challenge of spelling out the financial penalties for failing to buy insurance under Obama’s health care plan.

On the other hand, Obama seemed to repeatedly break the rules simply to ramble on past the time limits, even after being indirectly admonished by Brokaw. Now, I will say Obama was more impressive tonight than I expected. He was generally comfortable in this format and eloquent. When Brokaw wouldn’t let Obama get in follow-up response during a discussion on tax policies, he effectively worked his thoughts in anyway as part of his answer to the next question about Social Security and Medicare.

But Obama spent much of the 90 minutes repeating the same phrases and attacks on McCain that Obama used in the last debate and in recent weeks on the campaign trail. McCain stood out a little more because he had several fresh things to say. He probably gave heart attacks to more than a few conservative Republicans when he opened with a commitment for the federal government to buy up every individual bad home mortgage in the country. But at least it was something different from the previous debate for viewers to chew on.

I thought McCain generally improved his performance on the economic crisis and other domestic matters. He sounded more thoughtful, instead of constantly repeating talking points. And he was darn impressive during the 20 or so minutes on foreign policy issues (Although, I would urge him to come up with new material when he talks about Russia’s Vladamir Putin).

Obama didn’t make any mistakes, so tonight’s debate might not make any difference in the election. But McCain gave undecided voters a slightly improved view than they’ve seen before, while Obama looked pretty much the same. That could make a difference if the election turns out to be close.

  
From upper left: SARAH PALIN (www.johnmccain2008.com), GWEN IFILL (AP photo) and JOE BIDEN (AP photo).

Gov. Sarah Palin will safely exceed expectations by coming up with some original answers to at least a couple of questions, and probably a good ‘zinger or two. Voters will like her again, like they did after her convention speech. But it will be obvious when she’s forced to retreat to talking points.

Sen. Joe Biden will work hard to avoid any stupid gaffes, which means he won’t be as passionate as he can be in a stump speech. Don’t look for recycled talking points, but all of Biden’s hard punches will be directed at John McCain as the head of the ticket, not Palin.

Moderator Gwen Ifill will ignore the tempest in the teapot of the past couple of days and do her typically efficient job of managing the debate. The McCain camp attacking Ifill doesn’t make sense to me because Ifill never tries to make this type of forum about her. She’s not going to try to embarrass Palin or Biden, but give both candidates an equal opportunity to make their best case for the voters.

 (AP photo)

Sen. John McCain went through almost the entire debate Friday without a single mention of his days as a Vietnam POW. In fact, if the debate had ended after 90 minutes as advertised, that issue would have stayed off the stage. So maybe that’s why a Barack Obama-friendly audience in downtown Phoenix gave one of its loudest responses all night — a rolling, unified groan of disgust — when McCain managed to slip in a POW reference about five minutes into overtime.

I had already attended several election events this year around the Valley sponsored by the McCain campaign. So I decided to watch Friday’s debate from the Democratic perspective. The Obama campaign threw a viewing party outside its Arizona headquarters, a converted house that’s for sale at Roosevelt and Sixth streets. More than 130 folding chairs from the United Commercial and Food Workers union were set up in a parking lot behind the house. The campaign projected a live Web video stream from C-SPAN onto a second building facing Roosevelt. Within 30 minutes after the debate started, all of the chairs were full and more Obama fans were standing in a semi-circle behind them.

The crowd was strangely quiet through much of the debate, listening intently as Obama and McCain fired back and forth in a free-wheeling contest of which moderator Jim Lehrer lost nearly all control. Obama’s backers did loosen up with a few rounds of applause and the occasional cheer after Obama delivered some one-liners. But some people also weirdly cheered a couple of times after McCain repeated an Obama comment in order to bring home his own argument.

So, I expected a boisterous pep rally and instead attended a mostly studious affair. Ken Clark, a Democratic activist and former state lawmaker from Phoenix gave a great explanation as to why:

“It was thick, fiberous and chewy,” Clark said. “And I don’t mean that in a bad way. I don’t believe I have ever seen them get so in-depth in past presidential debates. They usually focus more on firing those zingers at each other.”

Clark was right. Obama needed to demonstrate he has command of a lot of different facts and ideas, and that he can think quickly and speak well without a Teleprompter. He succeeded, to the likely horror of many Republicans who have predicting for weeks that Obama would fall on his face in the debates.

Meanwhile, McCain went to Mississippi bristling with examples of where he has been involved in national and foreign affairs, and was determined to cram every one of them into the debate. The Democrats outside Obama’s Arizona headquarters tried to dismiss McCain’s experience as meaningless or too close to President Bush. But I though he did a great job of presenting his case to those middle-of-the-road voters expected to ultimately decide the Nov. 4 outcome.

All of this means I don’t believe there was a clear winner from Friday’s debate. I can’t wait to see and hear what other people think.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is planning another outdoor viewing party for the vice presidential debate on Thursday. I’ll say one thing, they had better figure out how to improve the video feed. The frequent freezes of the campaign’s Internet connection annoyed many in the audience, and I doubt next week’s crowd will be as patient as they were tonight. Democrats are eager to see Joe Biden tear into Sarah Palin. I wonder if she will manage to disappoint as many critics as Obama did tonight.

Connie Duncan of Chandler wrote the Tribune this week, and submitted a copy of an essay from the 1966 book “America and Americans” written by John Steinbeck. This quintessential American author clearly was fascinated by the way that we adore our presidents but at the same time place impossible demands on their shoulders. With the Nov. 4 general election rapidly approaching, Duncan asked (rhetorically?) if American voters have matured in the past 42 years. Look at this final passage from Steinbeck’s essay and tell me what you think:

“The President must be greater than anyone else, but not better than anyone else. We subject him and his family to close and constant scrutiny and denounce them for things that we ourselves do every day. A Presidential slip of the tongue, a slight error in judgment — social, political or ethical — can raise a storm of protest. We give the President more work than a man can do, more responsibility than a man should take, more pressure than a man can bear. We abuse him often and rarely praise him. We wear him out, use him up, eat him up. And with all this, Americans have a love for the President that goes beyond loyalty or party nationality; he is ours, and we exercise the right to destroy him.”

 

Retired IBM technician Rob Haney of Phoenix is a rather annoying thorn in the political side of Sen. John McCain. Haney, chairman of the Republican Party in McCain’s home legislative district, clearly would prefer that McCain leave the party, or even better, just leave his Senate office for another Republican to hold. Haney is convinced that McCain isn’t a real conservative and is disloyal to the Republican Party’s platform on issues ranging from campaign finance to gun control to climate change to immigration enforcement. Haney has said so to just about any journalist and citizen blogger who will listen. But a couple of my favorite quotes went to The Nation’s Max Blumenthal:

“McCain is mentally unstable and vindictive and out of control.”

—Huffington Post, Feb. 15, 2007

 “The guy has no core, his only principle is winning the presidency. He likes to call his campaign the ’straight talk express.’ Well, down here we call it the ‘forked tongue express.’”
—The Nation, Feb. 21, 2007

Haney got quite a bit of national media coverage after the McCain camp tried to seize control of legislative District 11 during the 2006 state primary through the election of precinct committeemen, also known as PCs. This low-level office is the key to participating in the party’s official machinery. Party leaders must start out as PCs and must be voted in by other PCs.

A number of McCain backers were elected as PCs in 2006, but not enough to take down Haney, who has continued to speak out even after McCain earned the Republican nomination for president last spring. Given McCain’s frequently hot temper, you can guess what he did for this year’s state primary on Sept. 2.

“You’d think he’d try to put things aside and unify the party with a presidential election going on. Instead, he tried even harder,” Haney told me Thursday.

The McCain camp elected another slate of impressive candidates to this obscure post, including former Govs. Fife Symington and Jane Hull and current Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne. Creating the most buzz in Republican circles was the defeat of Haney supporter Tom Husband, who will have to give up his title as chairman of the Maricopa County Republican committee.

But Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who also lives in the district, weighed in on behalf of Haney and his slate of candidates. That might have tilted the scales against McCain, although no one will know for sure until District 11 PCs gather in late November to choose district leaders.

“By my reckoning, we still have a considerable margin,” Haney said. “I was surprised by that myself.”

And as District 11 has perhaps the largest number of PCs in the state, that outcome could heavily influence who is chosen as the party’s statewide chairman in 2009. Current chairman Randy Pullen also lives in District 11, and he’s another party activitist who has publicly clashed with McCain before.

As for Haney, he’s going to vote Republican in the presidential election on Nov. 4. But he won’t see it as a vote for McCain.

“How could you be enthusiastic for someone who has done his best in the past four years trying to decimate the conservative base, including you? There is hope with Sarah Palin.”

Hugh Downs, an East Valley resident and former host of ABC’s 20/20, broke his final tie to journalistic independence and has decided to support Democrat Barack Obama for president. The Obama campaign has scheduled a 3 p.m. news conference today at the Tempe campus of Arizona State University, where the school of communication is named after the TV legend. The campaign already has released a comment from him:

“I am proud to announce my support for Senator Barack Obama for
President.  At a time when our economy is faltering and our health care
system remains in crisis, we cannot afford four more years of the same
failed economic policies,” said Downs, 87. “Senator Obama has solid,
realistic plans to strengthen our economy, provide health care to every
American and create jobs across this great nation. Arizonans, like all
Americans, need the change that Barack Obama will bring to Washington.”

When Downs retired in 1999, he held a world record for the longest continuous appearence on network television. He started out in entertainment but transitioned into television news and came to reflect journalistic credibility similar to that of Walter Cronkite and other anchors of the main nightly news shows.

Downs had fallen somewhat from that perch with his slate of late-night informercials. But I have heard Downs speak a couple of times, including an appearence before the Arizona Senate a few years back, and I was impressed by his continued eloquence and insight driven by his perspective as an independent observer of events.

Endorsing Obama casts a partisan shadow over Downs’ stellar career, one that’s sure to inspire those who claim all journalists are liberal and subtly support Democrats in our work, whether or not we admit to it.