Town Hall: McCain's Comfort Zone
Campaign Banks On Meetings to Give Best Forum for Republican

By Michael D. Shear and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 13, 2008

NEW YORK, June 12 -- Microphone in hand and surrounded on all sides by friendly inquisitors, Republican Sen. John McCain called on a man in the back row of New York's Federal Hall on Thursday night and waited for another opportunity to demonstrate his mastery of the off-the-cuff answer.

"We've got to put our country first and not our party first, and too many people have that reversed," McCain told the man, who asked about how he would break Washington gridlock. "And by the way, this is not a cheap shot. It's a matter of record. . . . You put your finger on what has to be done. Yes, there's going to be a change in Washington, but will it be the right kind of change or the wrong kind of change?"

This is McCain's arena of choice -- the town hall -- where mixing serious answers with flip comments and the occasional sarcastic insult has become his trademark as much as the smartly crafted speech in front of thousands defines his rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Now, the McCain campaign sees town halls as a necessity, hoping the old-style format will serve as a video-age counterweight to the rhetorical chasm between his stilted and sometimes awkward speechmaking and Obama's often rousing delivery.

McCain (Ariz.) has dared Obama to join him at 10 town hall meetings during the next 10 weeks, answering questions from a few hundred undecided people at a time. If it works as the campaign hopes, voters will see McCain as the more informed candidate, with a better command of the nitty-gritty issues that presidents face.

"This isn't a gimmick or some type of a hidden ruse," said McCain adviser Steve Schmidt, calling it a way to elevate the presidential debate and a chance to "change the trajectory of this campaign."

The idea has helped soothe concerns among Republican strategists, who have been distraught over McCain's inability to compete with Obama's rhetorical flair. That contrast was never more evident than on the day last week when Obama clinched the Democratic nomination.

In a widely panned speech in Louisiana designed to kick off the general election, McCain flubbed some lines and smiled awkwardly at moments. He stood in front of a green banner and spoke to a crowd of a couple of hundred, a setting that was lampooned by Democrats and Republicans alike. An hour or so later, Obama spoke in the center of a St. Paul, Minn., arena in front of 17,000 screaming supporters.

"McCain has the potential in town hall meetings to be really good. He has almost no potential to be really good in a big speech and zero potential being better than Obama in a big speech," said one Republican consultant, who asked for anonymity to discuss the campaign's strategy on the town hall challenge. "It's the one format where he could legitimately shine."

But the risks are huge for McCain. He is essentially betting the presidency on a series of side-by-side performances with his rival in a largely uncontrolled environment.

As evidence of the danger, McCain's most famous gaffes have come during town hall meetings. It was at a January town hall in Derry, N.H., that McCain said it would be "fine with me" if U.S. troops stay in Iraq for 50 years or more, providing a sound bite that his political rivals have put to great use.

"Make it a hundred," he said, cutting off the questioner as a bit of annoyance showed through.

When McCain is on his own, town hall audiences are generally filled with Republicans, most of whom are supporters and often allow him to joke or finesse his way out of tough answers. The dynamic with Obama would be different, with a more skeptical audience and with McCain's chief rival on stage ready to challenge his answers.

Standing next to Obama during televised town hall meetings could also highlight the kind of direct comparison that most campaigns strive to avoid: the image of a 71-year-old candidate next to one who is 46.

It could give Obama a chance to upstage McCain, looking presidential in the one forum that had been exclusively McCain's. Although Obama's performance in debates was more uneven than his formal speechmaking, McCain's advisers say they do not believe the Harvard-educated lawyer will flop in a town hall.

"It's a risk that I believe is absolutely worth taking," said Mark McKinnon, a former media consultant for McCain who helped conceive the town hall challenge. "I think when people see McCain unvarnished, they like what they see."

The problem for McCain is that most people in the country do not see him at his town hall meetings. After well over 100 of them during the primary campaign, they have become routine, unlikely to garner more than a brief mention in news reports. Joint town hall meetings with Obama would be seen as grand political theater and would almost surely be televised nationally.

One result would be plenty of free media exposure for a campaign that has little hope of matching Obama in ad dollars. In the primaries, Obama spent nearly $78 million on television commercials, and McCain spent about $11 million.

One GOP adviser said the consensus in the campaign is that town halls are McCain's "best setting," whereas Obama is "only average" in unscripted exchanges.

It was during debates with his Democratic rivals that Obama said he would meet with anti-U.S. heads of government without conditions. And the candidate answered a question about how he would respond to another al-Qaeda attack with the wonkish answer that he would ensure an "effective emergency response."

McCain's use of town halls has become legendary. In his 2000 campaign, they helped create his reputation for "straight talk" because he was willing to take tough, unscripted questions. After his 2008 campaign imploded last summer, he held 100 town hall meetings in New Hampshire in a bid to revive the "maverick spirit" of his candidacy.

Armed with that confidence, McCain has challenged Obama to one town hall meeting each week, to have started with Thursday night's forum at Federal Hall, where George Washington took his first presidential oath of office.

Obama initially praised the idea, but his campaign said Thursday night was too soon to work out the details. It later offered a counterproposal: lengthier exchanges along the lines of the famous meetings between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.

"We are happy to do more than the three typical presidential debates in the fall," Obama told reporters this week. "It's not realistic for us to do 10. We're dealing with all the campaign events that I have to do, since we've just finished our primary election."

McCain aides had considered putting an empty chair on the stage for Obama but thought better of it. Still, McCain tweaked Obama for failing to show up.

"Now, this town hall meeting probably would have been a little more interesting if Senator Obama had accepted my request to join," McCain said.

McCain's aides insist their proposal is not strictly an attempt to provide a safe environment for their candidate, and they reject the notion that they are seeking free air time.

"It's a good thing for democracy," McKinnon said. "This is the sort of thing voters are looking for."