In a Heated Race, Obama's Cool Won the Day

He was telling the American people that he didn't have horns and a serpent's tail. He all but endorsed apple pie. For an exotic candidate, being a little dull is a brilliant strategy.

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The New York Observer recently ran a cover story with an illustration of Obama as Spock, the science officer of "Star Trek's" spaceship Enterprise. This worked in part because Obama can appear to have a Vulcan-like reserve, and because it let McCain be the excitable Capt. Kirk. On the TV show, Kirk was always trying to save an imperiled planet, and being rather red-faced and melodramatic about it. So, too, with McCain, beaming himself back to Washington to save the nation from credit default swaps.

But maybe the better analogy is between Obama and Batman. A few weeks ago a YouTube clip of the old 1960s "Batman" TV show went viral. It was titled "Batman vs. The Penguin: The Debate." The clip shows Adam West's Batman squaring off against Burgess Meredith's Penguin.

The Penguin vows not to sling mud. (Then he points out that Batman is always seen hanging around with criminals.) Adam West doesn't flinch; he plays the Caped Crusader as a man who need never raise his voice above a whisper. He is Obama-cool.

But wait: Maybe Obama is the Road Runner, and McCain the coyote, as has been suggested by the blogger Andrew Sullivan. There was something coyote-like in the way that McCain's schemes to defeat his rival often backfired. Sarah Palin, in this formulation, was an Acme missile that malfunctioned and returned to blow up Wile E. McCain.

The Road Runner, meanwhile, remains unflappable. He's got the right temperament for what he needs to do.

Which is move on. Keep running.

Beep beep.