The Demeanor Debate

John McCain spent 90 minutes tonight telling voters Barack Obama "doesn't understand" what America is facing, as Obama demonstrated a broad grasp of the 21st century issues besetting the economy and national security.

Body language was revealing in McCain's tight grin that occasionally morphed into a smirk under criticism, while Obama featured a relaxed smile and at least half a dozen times responded with a generous "John is right, but..."

Behind the difference in demeanor was the familiar clash of experience vs. change that is at the heart of the contest, with McCain distancing himself from Bush-Cheney and impressively name-dropping world leaders (but getting wrong the new president of Pakistan) to persuade voters that Obama is too naïve to deal with a dangerous world.

There was no defining "gotcha" moment but, in light of Obama's need to show persuadable voters that he has the intellect and disposition to occupy the Oval Office, he made progress as did McCain by appearing forceful and knowing to offset doubts about his age and hair-trigger temper.

Most of the time, the candidates talked past each other but after McCain had hammered away at the need to cut government spending, Obama confronted him with:

"John, it's been your president who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time who presided over this increase in spending. This orgy of spending and enormous deficits you voted for almost all of his budgets. So to stand here and after eight years and say that you're going to lead on controlling spending...is, you know, kind of hard to swallow."

What is unknowable is how the debate affected the unspoken subtext of this election--race.

The site itself was a third presence tonight, the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where 46 years ago Army troops surrounded James Meredith as he integrated "Ole Miss" amid riots and bloodshed.

Meredith himself, who later became a Republican on the staff of Sen. Jesse Helms, is a cranky reminder of the complexity of race in the South. He declined an invitation to the debate. "My wife and son will be there," he told the Washington Post. "I'm taking care of the grandbabies."

But those of my generation can't overlook the history that, when Meredith entered the university, the interracial marriage of Barack Obama's parents was illegal there, and that John McCain's great-great grandfather had owned a plantation nearby.

Almost half a century later, things have changed but race is still an issue there and in much of America and will affect the result of this election, no matter how well the candidates performed tonight.

"Did I Mention He's Black?"

Barack Obama started out running as a race-neutral candidate, but Jeremiah Wright and the "white working class demographic" made the issue inescapable, and the presidential campaign will benefit from having it out in the open.

At a fund-raiser last night, he previewed the underbelly of the Republican attacks to come:

“We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run,” Obama told supporters. “They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”

And to cap it all: “He’s got a feisty wife.”

It takes rare confidence and courage to anticipate and drag out into the light the kind of prejudice that thrives on darkness, to do what John Kerry, to his regret, failed to do in 2004--confront the 527 slime machine that John McCain deplored back then but has yet to disavow fully and forcefully now.

What Obama is doing is not only challenging the decency of fair-minded voters who might be influenced by such attacks veiled in darkness and silence but would be shamed to tolerate openly--but his opponent's as well.

They, and John McCain, have a decision to make.

Hillary Clinton's Nixon Moment

Who will tell her it's time to go? Certainly not her husband, whose dynastic hopes will die hardest. Nor the limp leaders of Congressional Democrats, although Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein have been clearing their throats. Al Gore is too busy saving the planet and Howard Dean is just trying to hang onto his job as party chairman.

As Barack Obama now takes the lead in the slow dribble of superdelegates into his pledge pool, there is no one to do for Hillary Clinton what Republican leaders did for Richard Nixon in August 1974, when the Senate Minority Leader, House Minority Leader and Barry Goldwater, the former presidential candidate, went to the White House and told him that hanging on was hopeless. Nixon stepped down the next day.

But the Clintons are not good listeners and, as their desperation grows, she is openly relying on race, telling USA Today that "Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again...There's a pattern emerging here."

One of her non-fans, Peggy Noonan, writes in today's Wall Street Journal: "The question 'Who will tell her, who can make her go?' is really the question 'Who will save the Democratic Party in 2008?' It cannot be doubted at this point that real damage is being done to its standard-bearer and to all those who will be on the ticket with him."

But with friends like its weak-kneed nabobs, the Democratic Party doesn't need enemies. When will its leaders do for Hillary Clinton what Republicans did for Richard Nixon before he took his own party down in flames?