NYT: The Making (and Remaking) of McCain

[quiet.american]

NYT: The Making (and Remaking) of McCain
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26mccain-t.html?ref=magazine


snip:

Going into the debates, an adviser expressed that very concern to me: “If he keeps the debates on substance, he’s very good. If it moves to the personal, then I think it’s a disaster.” Accordingly, Salter advised McCain before the first debate to maintain, one person privy to the sessions put it, “a very generous patience with Obama — in terms of, ‘I’m sure if he understood. . . .’ “The object wasn’t to appear condescending at all — really, the opposite,” an adviser said of Salter’s tactic, which judging by the postdebate polls seemed to backfire. “You put a bullet in a gun, figuring it’ll get shot once. We had no idea it would be shot 10 times.

snip:

In the final debate on Oct. 15 at Hofstra University on Long Island, McCain barely mentioned any version of the word “fight” but performed forcefully, perhaps even indignantly. By the time Steve Schmidt entered the postdebate spin room, his Obama counterpart, David Axelrod, had already been holding the floor for 20 minutes. Schmidt wore a pinstripe suit and his blue eyes carried a victor’s gleam. Like every other McCain aide I encountered that night, he was convinced not only that the senator had turned in his best performance but that viewers would see him as the clear winner.

snip:

Since that time, McCain has repeatedly told aides what he has also said in public — that had Obama truly showed a determination to have a series of joint appearances, the campaign would not have degenerated to its current sorry state.

:eyes: :nopity:


Whole spectacle (I mean, article): The Making (and Remaking) of McCain
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26mccain-t.html?ref=magazine