But my question is, does the negative effect of doing these things outweigh the negative effect of saying no to them? If Obama decides not to do them, what's his strategy for dealing with the fallout from saying no? In the past, it was always the GOP nominee who ducked debates. Think of C.J. on "The West Wing" (fiction, I know, but based on reality) when she said, "We said how about five debates, they said how about two, we said how about three, they said how about two..." Republicans look weak (I think) when they refuse to debate. How will Obama avoid that if he rejects McCain's offer?

I don't care if this would be good for McCain or not.  It would be good for the country.  Would it be possible for once to evaluate the merits of the idea rather than the political strategy?

Instead of considering what is good for the party, how about what is good for the country? I think that these forums are a great idea, in whatever form. The two presidential candidates appearing together multiple times, other than in the hilariously misnamed "debates"? Sounds great to me.

I agree with sdcrippen.  Obama can't very well shoot down this idea without looking, for want of a better word, chicken, which would just play into McCain's narrative.  His campaign's taking the right MBA-approved tack of not rejecting the idea by saying "no," but by saying "yes, and.." and then proceeding to implicitly reject the idea by completely reshaping iit nto something else.  Besides, it'd be fun to get a "my friends"/"change" drinking game going during one of these.  The over/under on the combined utterances of those two phrases would have to be, what, 10,000?

liberal reformer  ,

This is not about what is good for the country. This is about what's the best way to sell   nobody who is only good at reading speeches. He was at best mediocre at all debates.  When he doesn't read speeches he is terrible, one man gaffe factory.

jacobt1,

Sorry, I'm confused.  Were you referring to Obama or "bomb, bomb Iran" McCain?

Thanks for the insightful take, jacob. That's a very valuable contribution. You're at the top of your analytical game.

I agree with adaglas, who agrees with sdcrippen. "Yes, and ..." is the perfect way to go about it. Having dozens of these things is NOT a good idea, and not just from a selfishly pro-Obama point of view. Dozens and dozens of these get-togethers will ultimately deflate their value, and they will end up being nothing but reels of videotape that people comb over for every slight little variance. "Oooh, McCain said Iraq was a success here, and a week later he said it was 'just about a success.' Got him!" Think back to how tedious the Dem debates ended up being; that wasn't *only* because of the horrible moderators. It was overkill.

Still, libref is right, it would be good for the country to have a few of these. Then jacob's hypothesis can be fully tested.

And I'm for the over, adaglas.

Actually, you have to compare a race where Obama does them to a race where Obama /refuses/ to do them, in which case you've chosen to support the meme that Obama is worried about getting into a room with people who disagree with him, which undercuts a major theme of his candidacy.

Obama is still an unknown quantity for many Americans, especially the centrists and moderates he claims to be able to attract.  It's not a question of what he has to gain by showing up, it's a question of what he stands to lose by /not/ showing up.  When a war hero poses an implicit test of your mettle by challenging you one-on-one, the burden of proof is on you.

(That said, one should also bear in mind that the GOP is at a huge financial disadvantage this election cycle -- for a change! -- and free media events like these are their best hope of getting badly needed exposure for their candidate.)

But ultimately I think Obama has to take the "risk" that he might receive an awkward question or John McCain might not completely tank in these forums.  Americans have had enough of presidents who are comfortable only when they are preaching to the choir and make no effort at outreach other than "join me or be damned to you."  Obama claims not to be that guy, but many Americans (heck, many /Democrats/) could do with some more evidence.

This is what's "good for the country?" How is an unstructured format more valuable to voters than a structured one? I say it's beneficial to have a format that involves thinking and planning exactly what you're going to beforehand---i.e., the way a rational person sets policy---than to shoot out answers on the fly----i.e., the way George Bush sets policy.

Besides being a bad idea for Obama - it doesn't help him and it helps McBush - it's unnecessary. It's so pre-digital. Everyone knows the positions of the candidates, the format is tired, and we had too many debates in the primaries. Let them spend their time building their organizations, rallying their supporters, and refining their positions on the issues. It's just a lot of free media for McCain.

Call me a romantic and hopelessly naive, but I agree with the posters who say the town hall "debates" would be good for the country--primarily because they would take the moderating out of the hands of the Wolf Blitzers of the world.  Cable news has turned our elections into a circus.  While I realize that the high level of excitement generated this election cycle has been boosted by the cable news programs, we all know the down side to their hosting of these debates.  If McCain and Obama took charge of the format and moderation and kept the structure to a minimum, I have no doubt that Obama could reach a structure that would benefit him.  I have seen him in several town hall meetings and I don't know where anyone got the idea that he couldn't hold his own in such settings.  When I saw him he was relaxed, brilliant and performed well.  

If you recall, once the debates were down to two candidates, he performed well there too.  No doubt there is danger of a gaffe or two, but I think the upside would be enormous and we all know that McCain is just as likely if not more so, to commit mistakes.

Finally, it would just be good for democracy.  It would allow citizens, both dumb and smart, to get more involved in the process and as one poster said, this is what Obama is all about.  

Charliemudcat: Your post is very eloquent, better stated than mine.

Obama could really benefit from these townhall meeting.  I think McCain has actually been benefitting from his inability to garner media attention.  He's barely covered at all and when he is covered he doesn't look good.  Obama has been much more fleshed out so far.  McCain is a cypher.  He's running on a reputation that is more legend than reality.  Most people probably don't even know how terrible he looks these days.  These forums would shine a bright light on him and the ideas he's running on.  I think each event would cause his stature to dwindle a little further.  

Obama has nothing to gain from standing next to McCain. He has the momentum; in marketing parlance, he's the leading brand. He shouldn't even acknowledge McCain at this point, except to point out that he's just a guy running for Bush's third term. The leading brand never shares the spotlight with the challenger brand. They're not equals. Obama would be making a fatal mistake to treat McCain as an equal. Respectful and indifferent, projecting an aura of invincibility and confidence - that's what Obama needs to do. McCain will be a bit of a mad slugger if he gets in the ring with Obama. He has nothing to gain by playing fair. McCain may get lucky by throwing a wild rhetorical punch. Why risk it?

My advice: try to figure out what John Kerry would do, and then do the opposite.

I agree with adaglas, et al.  It really would prevent any criticism of weakness that the McCain camp will inevitably try to pin on Obama.  And drinking while watching a debate should lead to inspired political discussion.

At the same time, I feel like Obama could excel in a back-and-forth setting with McCain.  From what I see from the ancient one from Arizona, he isn't too great at thinking on his feet.  He begins to talk really slow and restates his point over and over.  Obama might make some uncomfortable comments, but they come across as a guy trying to be personable, not a guy who doesn't know what to say.  He should be able to pin McCain into a corner that he would be hard pressed to get out if he wasn't super prepared.  And I'd love to see it.

I think Noam is dead wrong here.  First, the notion that because a lot of Republican strategists want these forums, it must be bad for Obama, is wrongheaded.  I just saw Krauthammer very persuasively argue that the town hall idea is terrible for McCain, and that Obama is likely to defeat McCain handily in that setting.  

Right now, as Obama himself thankfully recognizes, the Republican operatives' strategy for the fall is to make Obama unacceptable as a President, not to promote the notion that McCain is a great candidate or would be a great President.  That strategy depends on making people associate Obama with his personal associations and traits, and to cast Obama as aloof and a bit haughty -- someone whom we just met and don't really "know."  Fox News is already beating this theme like a drum.  The period between now and the Conventions will largely be an event vacuum, especially after all the excitement of nearly biweekly primaries.  Into that vacuum, the right will try to solidify the image of Obama as at best unknowable and at worst a closet radical.  Town halls during the summer would not allow that narrative to harden -- people will rightly be focused on what is being said in the town halls.

Also, watching ordinary people question Obama will help, because none, or at most a handful, will bring up the BS (flag pin, Ayres, Wright) idiocy that the operatives are trying to tie to Obama.  Obama will be able to say, in response to press questioning on these subjects, that the people don't really care about that stuff.

Lastly, as has been noted, McCain -- despite his reputation as a maverick -- does not really address issues at a second or third level of analysis.  He does not know to rebut or sur-rebut. McCain is a classic "asserter," not arguer.  He relies on his moral authority and reputation for honor as a substitute for second- and third- level argument.  People don't realize this.  In these fora, Obama will look far more substantive.  The "he's all style, no substance" meme will evaporate.  And McCain may well be revealed to be the candidate who is based on symbol (war hero) but who cannot back up his policy proposals with real argument.

I've hardly disagreed with Noam about a thing this year.  But He's way wrong on this one.

What Liberal Reformer said and a couple of others have dittoed.  Remember the generally positive reaction to the YouTube debates?  I think average joes did a lot better phrasing questions to avoid ducking than many of the debate moderators (plus it's harder to duck a question from a voter -- nobody minds when you stiff Chris Matthews but stiff someone who could just as easily be one's mom and that can lose you a few thousand votes).  

I'm with Noam across the board on this.   "What's good for the country" only works when the other party is sincere about reciprocating the sentiment.  What's good for the country is to get this generation of Republicans as far away from power as possible.  Only when this generation of Republican's has moved on and they produce a group that's less cynical, greedy, selfish, more mature and not using 'good of the country' as a cover-up for 'rape of the land', should they then be allowed back near anything resembling that power.  If that means Obama needs to limit his exposure to debates of the type mentioned as McCain might gain too much, maybe just enough to eek out a victory, then there's no good reason to take the risk.

charliemudcat, great post and great moniker.

I agree. McCain is much more comfortable responding to voters in the interactive, more egalitarian environment of a Town Hall meeting and Obama much less so. Obama is much more comfortable formally declaiming before large audiences, while McCain is abysmal at formal speeches. (Obama's worst performances during the primaries were the exchanges his campaign set up with small groups of women. They only tried it a couple of times before abandoning the effort; Obama was very, and very apparently, uncomfortable with, and even seemed offended by the need to subject himself to, being asked questions by these voters -- so instead he controlled the interaction by performing as a sort of group leader or instructor who lectured to and posed questions to the women, rather than allowing them to question him. The result was that he came across as stilted and, worse of all, patronizing.)

Given his discomfort with interactions that put him on a more equal footing with voters, I think it would be a big mistake for Obama to use the Town Hall format -- with McCain or alone.

McCain, on the other hand, who is not an eloquent speaker but does seem comfortable in an environment of give and take, would do better to, on his own, stage large, televised Town Hall meetings (as Clinton did early in the '92 campaign) -- rather than depend on big speeches.

The problem for Obama is this; over time people tend to tune out big speeches. And they do like to see candidates in environments that show they are comfortable "rubbing elbows" with the hoi polloi.

I suggest that the issue is not would the Town Hall meetings be good for Obama but, as some above have said, would they be good for the country.  The answer is absolutely yes.

The issue in the election is not who is the best speechmaker -- we know the answer to that -- but who would be the best president.  Being president involves working with people and making decisions -- not standing in front of a teleprompter or responding  in sound bites to a pompous cable news pundit.

The Town Hall meetings would show us how each of the candidates would actually function, what they would do and say in unscripted and unmoderated circumstances.

Let's find out.  

The thing that's left out in this article, and I didn't see it in a quick read through the comments, is that the media is McCain's "base" as Chris Matthews pointed out...

An hour of debate will be whittled down to two thirty second sound bites on the evening "news"...trying to make McCain look as good as possible and to damage Obama.

Our Media Masters will be the deciders of what's important, and they're clearly in McCain's camp.

The town hall meetings are clearly to be avoided!

Let's do it. Obama will mop the floor with McCain.

People who know my views on the subject will understand why I was happy to receive this e-mail from the

Obama said he looked forward to debating McCain on foreign policy. So obviously he has to do it. Doing it ten times would be ridiculous.

The criticism that i've seen of his debate performance misses the point entirely. His opponents have been good at answering the question they wish had been asked, in rehearsed paragraphs, usually langue de bois through and through, especially H. Clinton. Obama has been getting better at that, unfortunately. But the criticism that he stumbles and makes "gaffes" is total beauty pageant criticism... what you saw was a man thinking on his feet...a few ers and ums are a small price to pay for  an actiual response to a question...more of that!