McCain’s facility with Townhalls is overstated. He’s only good at them relative to any other format. He’s terrible at teleprompter speeches and scripted answers, but he’s slightly less awful if he can come out from behind the lectern and shamble around a stage a little bit with a less constricted question and answer format.
It’s also overstated to say that Obama can’t handle them or that he was bad in the Primary debates. For one thing, he was debating Hillary, who is a much stronger opponent than McCain, and for another thing, the more debates Obama did, the better he got.
As has been noted, this debate tonight is really not an authentic townhall. It’s more of a conventional format with canned questions and answers. Audience members will be asking preselected questions, but will not be permitted to ask follow ups, go off-script or even remain on camera once they’ve asked the question. Brokaw can’t ask follow ups either, and neither can the candidates. The candidates also have to stay on their marks and do not not have free range of the stage. None of this lends itself to a freewheeling, spirited exercise.
McCain is telegraphing that he wants to go frontal on Obama, but with the constrictions in place, he might have to break format to do it. I think it will backfire on him, though. That just comes off as uncomfortable with an intimate audience. Still, I think his mind is already made up. He’s going to try something. I think it might be interesting to see how Obama handles a really aggressive attack.
I wonder if McCain will have the guts to look Obama in the eye this time or if he’ll continue looking angrily away like a girl who got felt up on a date.
Just saw on a Politico blog, I think it was Ben Smith, that though the two campaigns agreed that the moderator would not ask follow-ups, Tom Brokaw never actually agreed to this point, and was quite against the idea, so going into the debate, both candidates are expecting follow up questions from Brokaw.
Let’s see if McCain has the (despicable) guts to go after Obama on national television in the same way he has been doing in front of partisan Republican crowds.
How do they prevent audience members from going off-script? It’ll look/sound weird if the let someone on mike, turn it off midsentence, and move onto another person.
I hope that Obama will not let McCain continually interrupt him this time.
Remember Barack- in case you’re reading this just before going on- when interrupted JUST KEEP TALKING AS IF THE PERSON WERE HANGING ON YOUR EVERY WORD. Drives them nuts.
I like that Obama is standing. Is that SOP for town hall style? Anyway, that’ll give McCain a reason to stand, which won’t make it so noticeable that sitting, his feet barely touch the floor. I’ve heard he’s sensitive about his height.
“Not you, Tom”. Burn. And uncalled for. The man’s not funny.
It’ll look/sound weird if the let someone on mike, turn it off midsentence, and move onto another person.