Obama is cool, calm, and collected; Mccain is erratic

The Calm Factor [is] real reason for the Obama surge. It's not, I think, simply punishing the GOP for the financial meltdown. It's also the public's judgment of which candidate responded better to the events of the last two weeks. McCain seemed unstable, bombastic, temperamental and at times, hysterical. Obama seemed, well, presidential.

Here's what I think matters more than ideology at this point. The American people have lived through a nerve-wracking few years. So many certainties have collapsed. We had 9/11 and then Abu Ghraib. We had the Iraq fiasco and the Katrina catastrophe. Now we have the structure of capitalism on the brink. Americans do not want a president adding to the drama. They want calm and authority and reason.

And that's why the attempt to paint Obama as a flaming radical is so ill-timed.

Obama just proved that he is a careful, calm guy in a crisis. What the voters saw is at odds with what the GOP is now saying. So in that context, it's the GOP that's damaged outside its core believers. (Obama's immensely difficult job if elected president will be to bring those deeply alienated people back into the national fold.)

In the end, temperament matters. And in a country desperate for assurance and poise at the top, Obama is winning that debate. It's no surprise to those of us who've followed him closely for a while. But for most voters, this is a new and first impression of Obama's character. And it's powerful.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/the-calm-factor....
John McCain is all OMG! Maverick! Earmarks!
Obama is all Calm. Cool. Collected.

The entire past week, and especially the first debate, has shown us almost everything we need to know about the two candidates for president. Senator Obama is calm almost to a fault. A few of his supporters regularly ask for more demonstrations of "fire" from him. At some times he has the sort of demeanor that my mother would say indicates ice water flowing through his veins.

John McCain is largely the opposite of this. In many ways the senator is a Republican version of RuPaul, prone to the stereotypical mood swings and "diva" behavior associated with the drag queen subculture. When Senator McCain is not the focus of attention, he makes two snaps and screams for attention. Earlier this year his campaign attacked the press when the conventional wisdom said that the press, up until now 100% in the tank for him, were at least flirting with Sen. Obama. The videos they produced deriding Sen. Obama as a "celebrity" were a campaign version of the jilted girlfriend who throws her boyfriend's clothes out on the front yard so that everyone in the neighborhood can know what's going on.

It just gets worse. McCain's numbers were sluggish going into the convention so he bypassed all the other qualified Republicans for the likes of Sarah Palin, who is what passes for a legitimate candidate in this reality-TV-obsessed world. For a few weeks now the Palin bubble has deflated, with two gaffe-filled prime time TV appearances convincing the GOP they have to keep her on the stump with essentially the same speech she gave at the convention. Gov. Palin should worry about her job security, because as vice presidential candidates go making a switch is a pretty dramatic on the McCain scale.

But the best hissy fit was McCain fake-suspending his campaign while bringing his cameras and entourage into the already ego-filled halls of congress. His accomplishments added up to a big fat goose egg and he slunk his way back to the debate in Memphis where we were treated to a drama queen tour de force. He rolled his eyes, bared his teeth, mumbled under his breath and made an ass of himself in a way that only MaverickTM could.

Which leads us back to Obama. We live in perilous times, with wars in two nations, a fiscal crisis, and the threat of terrorism ever-present. In short, it's the exact time in which Americans need a sensible leader who won't dress up in sparkles and sequins in a ploy to attract the attentions of Brit Hume and Wolf Blitzer. Where Sen. Obama differs from past candidates who were described as lacking emotion because he has demonstrated an ability to connect to people on an emotional level that people like John Kerry, Michael Dukakis and Al Gore were not. Obama can afford to be caricatured by a very few as clinical if he's going to be the Rock of Gibraltar standing next to Hurricane Drama. The country is just now backing away from failed cowboy diplomacy, and has no desire to spend the next 4-8 years with the cowboys drunk septuagenarian grandfather.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-willis/america-wants-a-president_b_12984...

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Barack
• Obama
• Sarah
• Palin
• lie
• john
• Mccain
• Joe
• Biden
• economy
• speech
• interview
• debate
• energy
• oil
• gas
• tax
• Iraq
• war
• president

[HotLeper]

Not only is McCain erratic, he is also untrustworthy, indecisive and a hate monger.

[TuesdayPillow]

I'm more afraid of Palin than McCain!

[Jermbot15]

@Aznshox Clearly not real numbers. Your point suffers from a lack of understanding scale. African American's make up about 7 percent of the population. At best, if you assume record high African American turn out, Obama still needed to capture 45% of the non-black population.

[Mandinko23]

if mccain was elected that would be the end of america, come on palin she is sooo unexperience in politic to be honest i don't even know how she became a governor and alaska is like outside of the u.s.

[nutbagbrew102]

this is the biggist bunch of crap ever - two years later and we are still at 10% - 20% percent unemployed and waiting - this is what you get when a democrat hates small business and want to give money away to the so called poor - PRESIDENT FAILED!!

[matreyia]

I trust Obama more than any Republican or Tea Party. Though it doesn't matter who the party is...both are corrupt, but the GOP is more profit and money focused than the Dems. 

[IcedEarth426]

Both are globalist, criminal trash.

[Aznshox]

Yep it was basically 100% blacks who voted for him and about 20% of whites voted for him also

120% obama vs 80% mccain

these aren't real numbers i'm just using it as an example

[p2de]

he is calm just like kennedy 

hope no one goes crazy and kills a good president

[Krazkastan]

dear 1bulma1 u r a faggit and i hope myou suck it in a big dirty hole in the middle of china. have a nice day, scumbag.

from, the president of krazkastan

[starsiegeRoks]

Yeah....call us cunts

real political and civilised..

get out of politics and get a job

[masacrist]

LMFAO

HAHA.... ooh