Dangerously Boring

by georgia10 [courtesy of Daily Kos]

This "town hall" (and I put "town hall" in quotation marks because this was really like a glorified press conference) was boring, lusterless, and lacked any headline-grabbing moments. There was no winking here and no snappy comebacks. There was no real "smackdown" moment, no instance where any candidate scored anything more than small points in small fashion.  

And that mundaneness, that ordinariness of this forum, is dangerous for McCain.

It's dangerous in that McCain needed to shine tonight. He is down by double digits in key battleground states, and poll after poll is suggesting that we may see a landslide in November. Against all that, it was not enough for McCain to turn into an ordinary performance. It wasn't enough for McCain to generally control his temper and present an even-toned statesman. It wasn't enough for him to lay out his policy proposals.  

He needed to kneecap Obama.

But both candidates came away with mere cat scratches.

In being ordinary when the circumstances called for the extraordinary, McCain ensured that the status quo--which now heavily favors Obama--will remain in place.  And with the clock running out on this election season, that's a very dangerous position for McCain to be in, indeed.