Even more debate thoughts...

I'm going to be hammering on McCain some more in the next 'toon, so I'll document here what's bothering me about Obama's performance last night.

What we have here is a tale of two Obamas. First, we have the Obama who is an electrifying presence and a dynamic public speaker, who energizes his base and motivates people to vote for him because he is Barack Obama. This is the guy we saw during the DNC.

Then we have the Obama who stumbles through his arguments and gets weighed down by figures, who kow-tows to the far right in an effort to ingratiate himself some mythical Democratic notion of the "reg'lar Amer'can," and who makes proud independents ultimately not trust him and feel ambivalent about their choice since they don't really see any difference between the two candidates. This, of course, is the Obama we saw last night, for the most part (congratulating John McCain for his stance on torture? What?! The same guy who voted against the ban on waterboarding?).

This second guy is the type who merely motivates people to vote for him just because... well, he's not quite as bad as the other guy. Ask John Kerry how this guy does in elections that should, by all accounts, be easily winnable.

Personally, I'd like to see the first Obama in the next debate.