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Civility and honesty in a presidential campaign — with or without town-hall events

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Four days ago, the WaPo’s David Broder argued very awkwardly that “the tone and direction” of the presidential campaign has been needlessly hostile, and attributed it to the lack of debates between John McCain and Barack Obama. “Since the idea of joint town meetings was scrapped, the campaign has featured tough and often negative ads and speeches,” Broder said. Quoting McCain, Broder added that if the two candidates met more often, they would “improve the relationship,” and there would necessarily have a more positive race.

I didn’t find this argument especially compelling, which is to say, it struck me as pure nonsense. I was a little surprised, then, to see Broder return to the exact same point today. (Yes, Broder made the identical arguments in two separate Washington Post columns running just a few days from each other. Perhaps he couldn’t think of anything new to write about.)

No one else can lift this campaign out of the gutter, but these two are still capable of giving the country the kind of contest voters deserve — if they can build a little mutual trust.

McCain’s offer of weekly joint town meetings still stands. It is not too late for Obama to change his mind and take up this historic offer.

I haven’t the foggiest idea what David Broder is talking about. To hear him tell it, the only way for the presidential campaign to be respectful and substantive is for McCain to get to know Obama better by sharing a stage and arguing with him.

Broder has been around quite a while, and has seen more than his share of candidates and presidential campaigns. He has to realize how foolish this sounds.

First, whether McCain runs a relentlessly negative, substance-free campaign has nothing to do with his proposal for extra debates. If McCain wanted to be an honorable candidate, he could be an honorable candidate, whether his opponent is a Senate colleague or a total stranger. Building a rapport is not a prerequisite for honest campaigning — character and integrity are prerequisites for honest campaigning.

As far as Broder is concerned, McCain has something of an excuse — McCain is running an ugly and deceptive campaign, but that’s okay because he just hasn’t gotten to know Obama very well. In fact, as Broder tells it, this is Obama’s fault — if he’d only agree to 15 town-hall debates like McCain wanted, McCain wouldn’t have to be such a persistently repugnant candidate. This is sheer nonsense.

Second, the notion that McCain is more inclined to show decency when he knows a rival is demonstrably ridiculous. McCain has gotten to know many of his Senate colleagues very well, but that’s never stopped him from screaming obscenities at them if they dare to challenge McCain on a policy matter. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, one of John McCain’s conservative Republican colleagues and a man who’s worked with McCain for years, recently said, “The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Cochran said. “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.” Broder argues that McCain would be more pleasant to Cochran if they spent time together. Well, they have spent time together, and Cochran thinks McCain isn’t entirely stable.

And third, I’m not sure if Broder was following the presidential campaign earlier this year, but McCain participated in all kinds of debates with Mitt Romney — but it didn’t have the slightest impact on the “tone and direction” of the nasty campaign between the two.

When Broder pressed the point with Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee responded, “I think the notion that somehow as a consequence of not having joint appearances, Senator McCain felt obliged to suggest that I’d rather lose a war to win a campaign doesn’t automatically follow. I think we each have control over ourselves and our campaigns, and we have to take responsibility for that.”

That should have resolved the issue, but Broder is being deliberately dense.

If McCain wanted to run a substantive, grown-up campaign, he could. Whether there are three debates or 300 is irrelevant. It’s not like McCain and Steve Schmidt got together one day on Cindy McCain’s private jet and said, “Well, I wasn’t going to accuse Obama of wanting to lose a war and of being responsible for high gas prices, but since there are only going to be three debates, we might as well.”

Comments

  • rege

    says:

    Is Broader suggesting that McCain is running a protection racket?

    I imagine a shadowy figure is dispatched from McCain campaign headquarters to his rivals command center where he says to an Obama campaign aid,”That’s a mighty pretty campaign you got there. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to it would you? Nah, I didn’t think so. So what do you say to fifteen joint townhall meetings with my guy and yours? No? No? No!? Well, than you leave us no choice but to smear your guy.”

    Bipartisanship at work.

  • Polaris

    says:

    Just finished watching the Chris Matthews show (why is it a show?). Please get Gloria Borger off television. Oh and get Broder off everything

  • Publicus

    says:

    Come on guys, don’t you realize that EVERYTHING is Obama’s fault? McCain is running a horrible campaign because Obama made him do it. Damn you Obama!

  • Dunn Haddit

    says:

    In the case of David Broder, don’t forget that he and John McCann are contemporaries. I believe that Broder’s writing reflects the fact that it is much easier for him to relate McCann than Obama. You know, two old geezers versus a young whippersnapper.

  • Steve

    says:

    jp, I gave up on the Olympics the day they announced that the ’08 Summer Games would be in Beijing—and the IOC has a lot of work to do if they want my attention back

    As for Broder, he’s a three-faced Stepford journalist—there’s SuckingOzone Broder, then DungDense Broder, and finally, ShallowSleaze Broder. With this most recent cretinous attempt, he’s sort of a hybrid; a blend of all three. In dog language, he’s just a mutt….

  • Lew Scannon

    says:

    What about personal responsibility? Isn’t that a keystone of the Republican/conservative debate? Why doesn’t McCain take responsibility and just admit he’s running a smear campaign because when they run on truth and issues, Obama is more representative of the wishes and desires of the majority of American people?

  • Raoul

    says:

    I did not pay much attention to the first column since it was remarkably lightweight; the second only shows that McCain thinks this is a winning issue because Broder says that the offer still stands which means this issue is been force fed by the GOP. What it really is: a rationalization for negative campaigning- which frankly they don’t need but the press does.

  • PeteCO

    says:

    What is even stranger IMO, is that the McBush campaign thinks (or publicly says it thinks) that having McBush debate Obama weekly will be to their advantage. The reality is that the whole suggestion was put out there so McBushCO could assert that Obama is scared to debate their candidate.

    Privately, I am sure they are crapping their pants over the debates. Unless something changes, or I am not reading the candidates strengths and weaknesses accurately, Obama will eviscerate McBush in the debates, and they will decide the outcome.

    I have no f*cking clue what that pompous ass Broder is muttering about, and I don’t care.

  • Capt Kirk

    says:

    From what I’ve seen of the McCain Town Hall Phenomenon it consists of a few dozen senior citizens listening to McCain lie about what Obama has said, what Obama has done and what Obama stands for. It’s really hard to understand why Obama won’t give up the sold out stadiums and allow McCain to tell him exactly what the Obama campaign is all about.

    I realize now that I did see Broder somewhere in the channels I surfed but I mistook his appearance as a rerun of Tales from the Crypt. Now it makes sense why the Cryptkeeper kept saying “McCain…”

  • JoeW

    says:

    If there is a causal link between the tone of the campaigns and the number of debates, wouldn’t it also follow that if McSame ran a more respectful campaign he’d get the extra debates he wanted?

    Broder is a bigger dinosaur than McSame. That our crack political press corpse considers Broder their Dean, tells us all we need to know about how thoroughly stupid they are. Lord of the Flies is probably closer to the truth.

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    PeteCO: To mention something I’ve brought up before, Obama has spent the last four years working with McCain, has seen him every day that McCain bothered to show up, and is someone who uses his intellect. He’s seen the ‘famous temper,’ he has watched close up why Cochran was scared of McCain in the White House, he’s had a chance to see all of McCain’s weaknesses — and if you don’t think he’ll, very subtly, use them against him, who have you been watching these last few months?

    Does McCain, theoretically, have the same advantage? Yes, but his campaign has shown that he doesn’t operate on intellect, but on instinct and feelings. He’s JOHN McCAIN and doesn’t need to check things out — hence Hagee, Gramm, a gross of lobbyists, and (speaking of gross) “Miss Buffalo Chip.”

    “Obama will eviscerate McBush in the debates, and they will decide the outcome.”

    Absolutely, except what they will decide is the size of Obama’s landslide. The ‘outcome’ has been decided months ago — maybe even before we knew who the candidates would be. This is a Democratic year, and that has been obvious since January.

  • Capt Kirk

    says:

    “What about personal responsibility? Isn’t that a keystone of the Republican/conservative debate?” -Lew Scannon

    Ah, but you miss the real point. As anyone can see after eight years of the Bush example, personal responsibility is what Republicans demand of OTHER people.

  • Mimikatz

    says:

    When Broder says the problem is that McCain doesn’t know Obama well enough it is just projection (like the people who say they aren;t for Obama “because the countrty isn’t ready for a black President” when they mean they aren’t ready for it). The problem is that Broder doesn’t know Obama well enough, because Obama hasn’t come around to kiss his ring. This is the problem with lots of these pundits–they don’t think anyone should be allowed to run for Pres whom they haven’t vetted and approved of in advance. Think of all those chat shows (Matthews’ Sunday show comes to mind) where pundits proclaimed it would be McCaoin and Hillary. How dare Obama prove them wrong! How dare soemone run they don’t even “know.”

    The rest is just Broder finding ways to imply that Obama isn’t “qualified” because he’s not, you know, one of us.

  • Bruno

    says:

    Capt Kirk @ 9 said:

    ….the McCain Town Hall Phenomenon it consists of a few dozen senior citizens listening to McCain lie about what Obama has said, what Obama has done and what Obama stands for.

    Not to mention that all of them had to be vetted, not unlike the sycophantic Mary back in Ohio, with her crying and whining. If they aren’t plants, they aren’t welcome. They get tested by the amount of McCain Kool-Aid in their fridge.

    jurassicpork‘s question about the Olympics.

    The good thing about the Olympics, is that Bush is over there. As long as he’s there, he can’t cause too much damage at home. If we’re lucky the pollution will give him some respiratory problems, which will prevent him for a few weeks of standing in front of a microphone, thereby lessening the chance to make America look even more stupid than it is.

    We can all dream

  • Roddy McCorley

    says:

    Am I the only one in the world who is completely disinterested in the Olympics and what it’s become?

    Nope. I’m thinking between politics, steroids, and smog, the Olympics have completely outlived their usefulness.

  • jimBOB

    says:

    Watched Washington Week in Review for the first time in ages. Broder was on with this particular line of BS, which everyone listened to and nodded as if it made a lick of sense. I hadn’t realized how old and doddering Broder seems anymore. Guy should have retired long since.

  • Glen

    says:

    Broder is quite flexible for an old guy. I’m positive I could not jam my head so far up my a$$ nor even get them close.

    Pretty impressive!

  • R.T.Thaddeus

    says:

    Unless Obama’s campaign stops trying to turn him into Thomas E. Dewey, he will lose even though McCain is the farthest thing imaginable from Harry Truman. Obama has to necklace McCain with Bush, has to contrast Democratic policies and Administrations with Republican disasters and take the focus off himself. Attack ads work. Americans are gullible, malleable and largely ignorant. Otherwise millions of them wouldn’t vote against their economic self-interest as they have been doing since a majority voted for Nixon or the anti-working person anti-union Reagan. I mean how could they fall for the slimes against Kerry’s war service when the guys they elected were draft dodgers? You gotta be besotted with ignorance to be taken in by such flim flaming. Even the charge that Obama is an “elitist” gets resonance and his opponent has how many houses? A private jet? Has had his health care paid for by the American taxpayers since the day he was born 72 years ago. That he is an amoral fraud with no character whatever and who is willing to do or say anything to realize his ambition? Only fools or ignoramuses could buy McCain’s shtick. Yet he’ll probably win unless Obama climbs down from his virtuous seventeen hands high steed and starts kicking McCain in the nuts. Oh, and Broder? An irrelevant hack who once bragged about sharing quail with his good pal Karl Rove and then famously, and sanctimoniously, demanding that “Someone owes Karl Rove and apology” because he wasn’t indicted in the Plame case. That tells you all you need to know about Broder.

  • Lance

    says:

    “That should have resolved the issue, but Broder is being deliberately dense.”

    Yep, he is. Without Obama at the town halls, JSMcC*nt has no crediable audiance (one Americans will believe is non-partisan). He needs Obama to come just so we can see him answering questions from someone other than a clear brown-noser.

    And it a big opportunity for John Sidney. Republican’ts would just lavish praise on him. Liberals would be demanding to know why Obama shafted America with Telecom Immunity.

    It’s in the interest of the MSM to keep the election close and their viewers closer. The fact that they are setting up the election to be stolen again by the Texas Oil Mafia doesn’t figure into their stupidity.

    Bruno wrote: “The good thing about the Olympics, is that Bush is over there. As long as he’s there, he can’t cause too much damage at home.”

    Ah, no. Overhead at Beijing…

    Boy George II: “Valdy, you have to stop your invasion of Georgia, it’s confusing the KKK boys who don’t know the difference between our state and your former republic.”

    Valdy: “But George Georgovich, we are just trying to reunited South Osestia with North Osestia.”

    BGII: “Well, that’s okay, as long as you’re not invading Georgian territory.”

  • RICHARD JAGIELSKI

    says:

    I HAVE A VERY GREAT CONCERN WITH MCCAIN IN GENERAL. FOR THE MOST PART, HIS REPUTATION HAS BEEN TOTALLY FABRICATED, AND CONFIRMED BY THE GENERAL PRESS. THE PRESS IS NOT ASKING THE TELLING QUESTIONS. LIKE: HIS INVOLVEMENT IN THE S&L CRISIS, HIS INVOLVEMENT IN THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS, HIS ACTUAL INVOLVEMENT AT THE HANOI HILTON, HIS LACK OF GRASPING THE CURRENT ISSUES ON HIS OWN WITHOUT WHITEHOUSE TALKING POINTS, HIS LACK OF JUDGEMENT ON A LARGE NUMBER OF ISSUES, NOT THE LEAST OF WHICH IS HIS CHOICE OF ASSOCIATES LIKE SEN GRAHM ETC. I COULD GO ON , BUT THE POINT IS WHEN WILL MCCAIN BE VETTED FOR REAL?????

  • joey (bjobotts)

    says:

    Broder has no memory and has never been astute. He’s wrong nearly 100% of the time but fails to acknowledge it. His insights are extremely superficial and one gets weary having to constantly point out the obvious to him. Still he never fails to open his mouth and chatter nonsense at an alarming rate. I’m never interested in what Broder has to say, only if he will ever learn that after years of being irrelevant to just STFU.

    btw…with the losers that are scheduled to moderate the upcoming debates I’m surprised Broder wasn’t included (and that is not a compliment) . Brokaw, Gwen Ifill, Sciffer….what happened to the leaque of women voters…at least those people don’t have infotainment shows to boost by their appearances. Brokaw= the surge, the surge, the surge, forget everything else why won’t you just admit the surge saved Iraq?

    Schiffer= You have to admit McCain is better qualified to be predident…he was a POW

    Eiffel= Why did you go against your party’s base and reverse your position on FISA to one agreeing with McCain’s position?

    Not one liberal leaning moderator in the whole group..only conservatives….imagine that.

  • bkmn

    says:

    Personally, I can’t wait for the debates to start. McForgetful is changing his stance on issues every day and can’t remember how he voted on issues just a few years ago. Combine that with Obama’s speaking skill and we will his a hissing, spitting McBush on national tele.

    Then the John Q. Public will have an idea of just how poor a president McCindy would be.

  • purplehawk

    says:

    This whole thing reminds me of high school. McCain: “Okay, you won’t let me do what I do best! You’ll pay for that!”

    As for the Olympics, I can’t be bothered. Maybe next time.

  • montana

    says:

    Broder, the confused and old uncle, wanders into the room and mutters something incoherent. Everyone, but favorite nephew David Gregory who is desperate to remain in the will, shrugs, rolls eyes and goes back to the business at hand.

    Uncle Broder just keeps muttering. Favorite nephew David Gregory, former background dancer for Karl Rove, jumps up and down and proclaims the meandering unconnected thoughts as fascinating (gotta remain in the will). Family kicks David out of house.

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    To our two new (or unfamiliar to me) contributors:

    RTT: Comparing Obama to Dewey implies that McCain could be Truman. And that comparison is about as valid as comparing Bo Derek to Bette Davis as an actor.

    Richard Jag: All caps makes you look like a jerk, as you would know if you read many blogs. That you are a ‘jerk on our side’ doesn’t make you any less of one. Grow up.

  • Dee Loralei

    says:

    Am I the only one who was struck by the similarity in McCain’s excuse for his negative campaign and the excuses seriel wife beaters use when confronted by police? ” If she hadn’t smart mouthed me, I never would’ve hit her.” Or “she was asking for it, she looked like a tramp and dinner was late.” Or even somewhat like a protectionist racket, “nice little campaign ya got here, sure would hate if something happened to it.”

    The fact that Broder buys in to it and thinks it’s valid reasoning and is still pushing for it, tells me they are both incredibly sick manipulative men. And it’d be scary as hell if McCain became President.

  • R.T.Thaddeus

    says:

    Prup (AKA Jim Benton). I did not in any way mean to imply that McCain is similar to Truman: quite the opposite. I said, “McCain is the farthest thing imaginable from Harry Truman.” Hey, I knew Harry Truman and John McCain is no Harry Truman. Oh, and are you implying that Obama is Bo Derek and McCain Betty Davis? That’s a stretch.

  • Donna

    says:

    Yes, I think you may be right about David Broder running out of things to write about. Otherwise there really is no excuse for writing such a dumb article. McCain makes it sound like he had no choice but to resort to retaliation. He’s behaving just like a schoolyard bully and David feels it’s Obama’s fault, somehow? Maybe David needs to take some vaca time to clear his head.

    “To hear him tell it, the only way for the presidential campaign to be respectful and substantive is for McCain to get to know Obama better by sharing a stage and arguing with him.”
    No, it’s because John McCain wants everything HIS way, and when he doesn’t get it HIS
    way, he reverts to infantile behavior. Really makes me shudder to think what a “President McCain” will do if some foreign Head-Of-State doesn’t see things HIS way. What will he then throw at him or her?

  • Racer X

    says:

    Broder obviously doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the truth. He says:

    McCain complained bitterly to me about accusations that he has run a racist campaign, and Obama voiced his anger at the charge that he would rather lose a war than jeopardize his election.

    Has Obama made much noise about McCain’s use of racism (which IMO has been overblown by some)? No. What Obama has said is really pretty tame stuff, considering the character assination McCain has personally been dishing out with regards to Obama’s position on Iraq. Broder throws out the line “Obama voiced his anger at the charge that he would rather lose a war than jeopardize his election” as if McCain really isn’t responsible for saying that, since he also says that Obama has accused him of racism. Which of course he hasn’t.

    Broder of course thinks that the solution is to do what John McCain says. What a surprise, the “Dean” of the DC MoronMedia, the people who helped sell us all the Iraq war, the people who haven’t pushed back much against the worst president ever, it wants the upstart Obama to do what their favorite stooge and buddy of the worst president ever tells them he needs to do.

    If Obama starts listening to the assclowns like Broder we’re in a heap of shit. Luckily we have a better candidate than that!

  • alberta treadway

    says:

    Hey, I might have thought this a wonderful idea untill Mccain was caught stacking a town hall meeting with his supporters and donors to his campagne, and told the media it was nutural and open to all people! You can’t truest Mccain and his campagne to have a open town Hall meeting! If he’ll lie to the press about it, whats to stop him from lieing to us, the public, and stacking it in his favor! they will have a platform soon enough and it will be a honest open platform and not stacked to eithers advantage! You clearly see him cutting off reporters who ask him the hard questions, and how he turns some questions into another question to ans. I want them to debate! Can’t wait! but on a honest, open forum, with open honest questions that Mccain can’t have his slacky’s plant in the audience. That one in Ohio just kind of sneaked in there , and now he has a lot of ans. to give to why he lost all those people jobs for them. What angers me is, if Obama had a lobbyist who worked for him who out sourced 8,000 jobs from the people of Ohio, and worked direct with georgia thats at war with the Russia it would be all over the news. but it is the darling of the media Mccain and not a word about it, It’s all about edwards, and how he will hurt the Dem’s and Obama! Real fair and balanced, isn’t it1