The presidency is still a kind of four-year television series, with the chief executive in the starring role. Yes, executive and international experience count. But what may count more is whether voters think they can live comfortably with this character coming into their living rooms and bedrooms night after night for four years. Obama has done little to make himself acceptable in this fashion.
How tedious has this campaign been so far? With the candidates doing so little of consequence, the press has been reduced to endlessly speculating about vice-presidential choices. (I’ve written three such pieces myself!) Or they’ve pounced on the remarks of such surrogate mediocrities as Wesley Clark and Phil Gramm who, last anyone looked, were pretty much complete failures when they sought national office themselves.
Recently, some expressed surprise that McCain has chosen so far not to campaign on weekends, and that Obama had enough free time one day this past week to spend three hours exercising in a gym. Yet out of sight means out of mind. The way these two are campaigning, the more days they spend away from the public eye the better off they will be. May the least lackluster campaign win.
ODDS
JOHN MCCAIN
Odds: 6-7 | this past week: same
BARACK OBAMA
Odds: 7-6 | this past week: same
To read the "Presidential Tote Board" blog, go to thePhoenix.com/blogs/toteboard. Steven Stark can be reached atsds@starkwriting.com.
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