Around their drive-by handshake at last evening’s forum on public service, John McCain and Barack Obama showed voters their best selves, but there must be an alternative to the sliming of the past weeks and yesterday’s arm’s length politesse.
Why doesn’t Obama take McCain up on the offer he repeated last night for face-to-face town hall encounters? In such a setting, McCain would not have been able to pass off Sarah Palin’s slur on community organizers without being pressed by Obama to repudiate such glib mindlessness.
In a race that has tightened with McCain’s momentum from the Palin effect, Obama should rethink his rejection of the town-hall setting as he did the issue of public financing. A presidential race is no place for a foolish consistency.