Published: July 29, 2008 02:59 pm      

ROOT: A contrast in styles

I have expressed my feelings on who would be better suited to run the country come January of 2009 and despite some disturbing changes in policy by my candidate of choice, I still stand by my endorsement. However John McCain is making it very easy to look at Barack Obama as the next president of the United States and the recent campaign events make me wonder why McCain has not fired his entire staff and just started all over.

Recently Obama was overseas meeting with world leaders and looking extremely presidential. To the masses that vote, looking presidential is 80 percent of the battle. Most people stand in a voting booth and think to themselves, “Well I have no idea what either one of these guys stand for, but this guy looked more presidential so I am voting for him.” It is a shame because voting should be more involved than that, but that is usually all the thought the average voter puts in to their decision.

So while Barack Obama was overseas looking like the next president, John McCain was also overseas making much less heralded stops. Does the media unfairly favor Obama? Well, whether or not you think Barack Obama is qualified to be president, there is no doubt that he has quickly become an expert at running for president. For the media it is the equivalent of choosing between covering a bingo game in a church basement or the last concert of a great rock band. There is no choice really. Obama makes good news so he gets the face time.

McCain has also visited with foreign leaders during this campaign but the media didn’t care and all indications were that the foreign leaders didn’t really care either. Then the capper came last week when Barack Obama gave a moving speech to more than 200,000 Germans in a German public park. He implored the Germans to help fight terrorism and he made the news all over the world. John McCain? John McCain went shopping and nearly got caught in an avalanche of canned fruit and then he gave a rousing speech to 20 or so people at a German restaurant in Ohio.

Look, I know that there is a lot more to being president than just being able to smile for the cameras, but Barack Obama has turned his media exposure into campaign gold while John McCain is being portrayed as the clumsy old man who can't seem to get out of his own way. I would cry foul on the media but all the media is doing in this case is pointing its cameras and letting the world have the laugh. The people that will lose this election for John McCain is his own staff.

The campaign of Barack Obama has taken the idea that the rest of the world wants Obama to be president and fashioned that into the well-received notion that Obama is pretty much going to be the next president. There he is on CNN shaking hands with world leaders and commanding crowds of hundreds of thousands. He is a very hard man to ignore.

If John McCain wants to rescue his campaign, he needs to fire everyone on his staff, lay low for about a week and then re-emerge with something spectacular. I mean if McCain was to simply fall off the face of the earth for a week, that would be some sort of news right there. Then if he were to reappear and save babies from a burning orphanage, he may stand a chance at resurrecting his campaign.

But it is obvious that McCain has not learned anything from George W. Bush and that is kind of a shame because W showed us that the right campaign staff can get anyone elected president. But McCain doesn’t have a Karl Rove nor does he have the entire oil industry in his back pocket and pushing him to the White House. Slowly but surely, Barack Obama is succeeding in presenting himself as the only real choice for president, and that of course means that McCain is left out in the cold.

I think the only drama left in this election is to see how badly McCain looks in the head-to-head debates with Obama. If I were on the McCain staff, I would avoid debating Obama for as long as possible. The notion that McCain cannot look any worse than he does now is certainly premature.

George N. Root III is a Lockport resident. His column runs every Wednesday. He blogs at http://www.rootsworld.wordpress.com. Send comments to georgeroot@verizon.net.