A debate night of discipline and muted contrasts

There was no Al Gore sigh, no George H.W. Bush checking his watch. The occasional moments when candidates let down their guard or lose their cool — unfortunate for them, but entertaining for the audience — were for the most part absent from Friday’s presidential debate.

Instead, what we saw was two generally disciplined candidates who muted some of the tendencies that have given them trouble in past debates. And in so doing, they muted some of the considerable contrasts between them. These two vastly different candidates seemed to morph a little bit into the other, or at least move a bit closer to the middle.

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Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. left, shake hands with GOP presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., after their presidential debate Friday at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

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And so if the 72-year-old John McCain didn’t really seem too old, the 47-year-old Barack Obama didn’t really seem too young, either. McCain went on the attack often, and Obama gave measured, careful responses.

The Illinois senator avoided a tendency he’s had in some past debates to speak haltingly and was more forceful, less aloof and less windy than in the past. McCain generally avoided appearing hot and bothered, though he didn’t escape the occasional cranky response or the frustrated smile when hearing an Obama response he didn’t like.

Oh, and both candidates looked fine, avoiding major sartorial mishaps, although McCain could have used some advice on staying away from thinly striped ties — his had a distracting flickering effect on the TV screen. Obama’s burgundy-colored number was a better choice. Obama wore a flag pin as well; McCain did not.

Obama supporters were not thrilled with how much time McCain spent telling Obama — rudely, it seemed to many — how much he failed to understand one thing or another.

“It’s a problem when a candidate keeps repeating a point about the other person,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “It makes it seem like he thinks the audience doesn’t understand.”

It wasn’t the only point McCain hammered home more than once. He twice declared he had not been awarded the Miss Congeniality title during his time in Washington.

Jamieson also wondered whether viewers might have found it rude, though less overtly so, when Obama spoke over McCain several times as he tried to rebut certain points.

There was little humor to the evening, as perhaps befits a debate taking place at a time of major national turmoil. There was, though, a nice moment of comic relief when moderator Jim Lehrer instructed Obama to direct an answer at his opponent; Obama turned and repeated the same answer, which drew a laugh, and McCain responded: “Were you afraid I couldn’t hear him?”

But usually it was McCain who refused to look at Obama, addressing nearly all his answers to the moderator. That angered viewer Celeste Theis, a social worker from Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., who supports the Democrat.

“That struck me more than anything,” said Theis, 55. “John McCain didn’t look at Barack Obama once. It’s as if he wasn’t there. I thought it was very disrespectful, as if he were just ignoring him.”

As for her own candidate, Theis offered that Obama “shone like a star. He spoke thoughtfully and knowledgeably. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an intelligent, well-spoken president?”

McCain supporter Lynn Donaghy, a 33-year-old mother in southern New Jersey, begged to differ. She thought McCain knocked it out of the park.

“McCain was cool and collected while Obama was shaken and stuttering,” she opined. A fellow McCain supporter, banker Bill Brookshire of Mountain City, Tenn., was more charitable toward Obama. “He spoke very well, and he’s very likable,” said Brookshire, 75. “But McCain’s been there, done that. I feel more comfortable with him running the country.”

One element in the debate that was rarely seen and barely heard: The audience. Moderator Lehrer was clearly doing his job, having lectured the crowd at the beginning about refraining from loud reactions that would cut into the candidates’ time.

“If you have a cell phone, throw it away or turn it off,” Lehrer said sternly, prompting laughter. Once the debate started, he again adopted the teacher mode when trying to get the candidates to actually speak to one another, like getting kindergartners to play together rather than alongside each other. But these two weren’t playing.