Somewhere in America, I'm sure, there was a roomful of people who thought John McCain did really well in the third and final presidential debate. But they were not the folks gathered to watch him square off against Barack Obama on a huge screen at the Concourse Hotel in Madison.
The screening, one of seven sponsored throughout Wisconsin by the "You don't look like AARP members," I said to them. "I am," one of the girls insisted. The program started off with an admonition from AARP Wisconsin state president Al Majkrzak (motto: "Must have more consonants") meant to kill everyone's fun, as old people are wont to do. "A word about comments during the debate," he instructed. "It may be difficult, but please keep them to yourself." This was so that everyone could hear and feel respected. I don't know about the respect part, but I'm pretty sure everyone could hear. The audio from the CNN feed was loud like some old people's homes are hot. "How's the volume for everybody?" one of the organizers asked. Heads nodded. It was so loud that I was never able to overhear a single comment in what amounted to incessant chatter between two UW students at the table right in front of me. The girls I saw come in were at the same table, but they seemed to be paying attention. Not these two: a girl with John Lennon glasses and a guy with close-cropped Chia hair. They chatted and giggled throughout the whole debate, like fifth graders. There was an older couple at my table, in the back of the room. I asked if they were AARP members. Yes, they said, and they'd come all the way from Johnson Creek. They asked if I was a member too. Maybe there's something about the AARP I'm not getting. I told them I was with the media and asked if they saw the earlier debates. Yes, all three. I asked if they've made up their minds who they are going to vote for. It was just idle conversation but they were on guard. "We have...leanings," the woman replied. Just as I suspected: Nader supporters! The debate started off with McCain explaining that "people are angry," and rightly so, although he seemed angrier than most. Obama made some point about the need to rescue the middle class. Moderator Bob Schieffer asked if McCain would like to ask Obama a question in response. "No," replied McCain brusquely, proceeding to launch into some canned attacks. The audience laughed. McCain's comments about a small businessman named Joe -- now the most famous plumber in America -- ended with some dark foreboding regarding an Obama presidency. "He's been watching some ads of Sen. McCain," cracked Obama in reply. The audience laughed harder. Both candidates delivered the zingers their advisors had helped them concoct. McCain's was in response to Obama's invocation of the disastrous Bush presidency. "I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." Ha ha. Obama's line was in response to McCain's claim that he backs a tax on families making $42,000. Everyone who has looked into this disputes it, said Obama. "Even Fox News disputes it, and that doesn't happen often on claims about me." Ha ha. The discussion about who was running the more negative campaign got even more laughs. Majkrzak's warning was disintegrating. The young people were quaking to suppress their giggles; other audience members were sighing and hissing. Put a bunch of people in a room with John McCain and Barack Obama and pretty soon it's like Lord of the Flies. Obama drew the biggest reaction of the night with his rebuke of McCain for bringing up his associations with "domestic terrorist" Bill Ayers (full disclosure: I've met Ayers, too; nice guy) and ACORN, a voter registration group McCain said was seeking to perpetrate a fraud on the public. (Some of the voters it paid people to register do not exist -- which means they can't actually vote, so no fraud was actually committed, except against ACORN.) "The fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign says more about your campaign than it does about me," Obama stated. The room erupted in laughter; there was even some applause. You see where this is going. Entropy. The mere mention of the candidates' running mates prompted a derisive hiss, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't about Joe Biden. The students at the table were blathering on, bored out of their skulls. "Why don't you shut up?" I wrote on my notepad. A young man wearing a white shirt and tie sat behind me and began chewing ice in my ear. I was sexually frustrated at your age too, young man. No one around me seemed to be paying attention. It was in some ways an even ruder audience than the one I watched part of the last debate with at Wiggie's bar. At least those people had a good excuse. They were drunk. At the end of the debate, Majkrzak led a discussion. "Those of you who thought McCain won raise your hands." I didn't see a single hand go up, although I'm told there were two or three, off to one side of the room. The parallel question for Obama launched nearly every hand in the room upward, even the couple from Johnson Creek. Leanings, schmeanings. Another question asked was whether the audience members heard anything new. One person said he didn't think so, because all the candidates did was spout talking points, which the debate process allowed. Another man disagreed. We didn't learn anything new because McCain keep lowering the level of the debate through his attacks. The audience applauded both statements.
