Sen. Barack Obama tried to make the most of his privileged position Wednesday night in the third and final presidential debate of 2008.
Obama's position can be called privileged because in order to come out on top of Sen. John McCain, Obama simply had to not do poorly. A mediocre performance that didn't expose any weaknesses for the McCain camp to attack would still net Obama a victory.
McCain's performance was strong for the first half-hour or so. He debated the economy with Obama and seemed to be wearing his heart on his sleeve, speaking passionately about Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Seattle who will be helped or hindered by Obama's tax plan, depending on which candidate you listen to.
"Joe the plumber" speaks to a fundamental problem with Republican strategy: sometimes they hold on to the 'little guy' stories for just a little too long. McCain referenced Wurzelbacher approximately 20 times.
The downfall of Wednesday's debate for McCain was the half-hour spent discussing attack ads on either side of the political fence. McCain insisted on discussing his campaign's recent attempts to denigrate Obama's character.
Campaign attack ads were the last thing McCain should have brought up. Despite Obama's calculated desire to stick to the issues, he was ready and willing to bring McCain to task.
The debate Wednesday night did not end it all for McCain, however. Instead, it only underscored how impotent the McCain campaign's current tack really is.
Obama will weather any character storm that McCain can send his way. He is, as many in the media have already said, unflappable. Any attempts to defile his character seem to fall by the wayside of the outlandish McCain supporters who call Obama a terrorist and put McCain's foot in his mouth for him.
So any attacks from McCain will have to yield cold, hard damage -simple PR moves just aren't enough.
Obama is an inexperienced politician, and no matter how many intelligent people he surrounds himself with, he is still green. An intelligent McCain campaign would attack Obama on the issues that he has no answer for instead of the issues that any eight year-old could defend.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
