NEW YORK — Two political rivals on a stage, unfiltered questions from undeclared voters, thoughtful answers, no sound bites. Democracy at its best, or risky politics?
GOP presidential candidate John McCain and an audience of potential questioners took over Federal Hall on Thursday night to illustrate his political gambit — an invitation to Democrat Barack Obama to join him in 10 summer town-hall appearances.
“This town-hall meeting probably would have been a little more interesting tonight if Sen. Obama had accepted my request,” he said, opening the 50-minute program, which aired on the Fox News Channel.
The theater of the moment aside, McCain’s camp is betting that by making the entreaty to Obama, the veteran senator from Arizona will gain an edge. The Obama camp appears in no hurry to give it to him.
“I think that it’s not realistic to do all 10, given all the campaigning that I have to do since we just finished our primary election,” Obama told reporters Tuesday, adding that he would probably propose a “mix of formats.”
McCain has suggested that the questioners for the meetings be selected by an independent polling agency. That was not the case at Federal Hall.
If the forum were elevated into an exchange between candidates, what would be the stakes?
“Talking in win-loss terms misunderstands the opportunity that each of them has here to do something they both say they want to do — signal a different kind of campaign,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Still, this is an age of 2 4/7 news cycles, where misstatements, distortions and blunders become instant sensations. And town-hall sessions can be more spontaneous, unpredictable and idiosyncratic than the standard media interview.
