You’re right to the best of my memory. But this is the first candidate of my lifetime who is younger than I am. Different times, different customs, different standards. To Obama, it was recognizing McCain as a peer. I think he views McCain as an equal. I think McCain views him with contempt. It was pretty obvious. McCain couldn’t even bring himself to look at the man or address him directly. It was as if he wasn’t there at all, except when he was pissed off.
Regardless how many Cook County cemetaries voted for Kennedy in 1960, it had no actual effect on the election. Had Illinois gone to Nixon, Kennedy would have still won the electoral college vote. The vote was 303 to 219 and the (then) 27 votes from Illinois would have only shifted the vote to 276 to 246, still favoring Kennedy. Even Byrd’s 14 votes could not have given Nixon the election if switched to Nixon.
I agree that Senators referring to each other by their first names sounds strange and too informal to us, but I’ve been seeing it a lot from all of them. It must be some Senate club rule that they do that when they’re not in the actual Senate Chamber. I don’t like it either, but I think it’s an almost universal custom now. [only when two or more Senators are talking about each other. Not between a Governor and a Senator, or anything like that]
Did Obama call Hillary by her first name in their debates? (I don’t know, I didn’t get to see them.)
I think he did. And also, that “you’re likable enough” thing? I don’t think that was dismissive or arrogant toward Hillary. It was dismissive of what he considered a silly issue. It was a fragment of “You’re likable enough, but who cares?” YMMV.