I always enjoy your take on things as you know. REC

Do you think he'll bring up Keating Five?  Do you think he'll wonder what John's big economic idea was back when he was cheating and got himself censored?  He could also speak about the constitution and cite cases when he's speaking about civil rights, or state's rights, or whatever.  John had a 'thang' about Barack, who gets under his skin for sure. He'll be training to 'get over it,' before debates, and he'll maybe even be on valium, but every day that man loses more of his cognitive ability and when old guys get organic they tend to the cranky.  

not to come off as angry or cranky. Which means he's going to be busting out the ghastly smile.

On the other hand, we're hearing that he's going full negative. Although Palin can do that with a smile, I see no evidence McCain can. When he jabs you he likes you to feel it.

What I'm hoping for is that McCain keeps "trying" to be nice, then falling back to mean, then catching himself and trying to be nice. I think the obvious vacillation would build a nice dissonance in the viewer, reinforcing the "is he losing it?" meme.

I don't think Obama is going to make him lose it, if only because Barack is just not comfortable with direct confrontation.

Apparently, McCain is ultra sensitive about his height. Perhaps Obama could just deliver a long answer about how McCain comes up short and repeat that phrase. That could be interesting if he could say it in a way that would sound perfectly normal to anyone who didn't know.

If McCain makes some negative comment about Obama's "associates" I think Barack could give some quietly dissapointed statement about how sad it is to see a once heroic figure reduced to doing anything to win an election, and how he hopes McCain isn't remembered like this.  I bet a sad, oblique, reference to McCain's abandonment of honor just might set John off.

After all, this is the same man who adamantly proclaims that everything he has said in this campaign is 100% true even when the facts of his lies are being laid out in front of him.

The next two debates will go like this.

John MCain will try to talk to Obama
Obama will be talking to the American People about his programs
McCain will get flustered for being annoyed
You fill in the rest

I think Obama should delibrately try to get McCain to blow up. I could see McCain having a Jack Nicolson from "A Few Good Men" like blowup in front of 40-50 million people.

OK, I just read the Rolling Stone article on McCain.  Aside from reinforcing and reiterating some of the other things I've read about him, it really drives home his personal, physical insecurities.  (Think about when Cindy mentioned his thinning hair.)  Twice in this original diary, and so far once in the comments, the key word was mentioned -- "short".

In Tuesday's debate, I think Obama should mention McCain's "short" fuse.  He should point out how McCain comes up "short" on solutions; his ideas are "lacking in stature"; he is "short-sighted"; his proposals "don't stand up to" Obama's; his ideas don't "meet the mark".  Maybe even a quip about his "tall tales" not living up to expectations.

I predict Obama will not try to make McCain angry, for two related reasons:

1) He doesn't need a seismic event to win the election. He already did everything he needed to do in the first debate. He showed himself as a reasonable and steady choice. The electorate already sees him as the change candidate, and they want change, as long as they are convinced the change agent is a safe and stable alternative. All he has to do at this point is get across the finish line with no major momentum shift.

2) The results of such an event would not be nearly as predictable as you seem to think. If the media makes a group judgement that Obama instigated the incident, they can make it into an "Obama's ego is out of control" story. Depending on the nature of the outburst, certain groups of people might feel McCain was justified. And lets not forget that the media would love for something exciting to happen that makes the race closer. It is starting to get boring for them, now that Palin has had her moment and gone into hiding for the duration. So anything exciting that does happen is likely to be spun in McCain's favor, unless it is clearly McCain's fault.

McCain and Obama fell out early in Obama's tenure as Senator after Obama said "thanks but no thanks" to some McCain ethics legislation that may have saved some Republicans' hides in the 2006 mid-terms (which appears to have been a pig-lipstick sort of situation that would've been a bridge to no progress).

As you can see from that letter, McCain seethed with contempt for Obama; if he's managed to hide that contempt on his face for this long; he's probably going to be okay in the last two debates... though maybe there is something to the fact that McCain wouldn't look at Obama during the last debate.

If Obama has another strong showing, the third debate will not matter.  I think he could close the deal with the second one tomorrow night.