By calling McQueeg by his first name and acknowledging his points, Obama also made himself look like he was willing to cross the aisle and work in a bipartisan manner. McQueeg, on the other paw, said Obama was too far to the left to work with which came off as laughable, mean, and completely partisan. This contrasted with McQueeg’s rhetoric about being bipartisan nicely.

Refusal to make eye contact or to speak directly to one’s opponents is a standard tactic for a beta male uncomfortably pushed into an alpha role. I was gong to say that McCain is a the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert, but that’s not really fair to him. He’s one of those guys who became boss because he was the old boss’s son or nephew or protege—the one who knows he’s really not up to the job, and knows that the people around him know it too. So he acts out in stupid, petty ways.

I can’t get over how childish it was for McCain to ignore Obama’s presence. 

You always try to look like the bigger man in acknowledging your opponent’s existence.  Boxers knock gloves before the match starts, and typically embrace at the end after one of them has lost.  Sumo wrestlers bow to each other in respect before their contest starts and at the end too.

When you pretend the other guy is so far beneath you you don’t even have to acknowledge him, you’re just being a weak asshole.  While Republicans are all about the Awesome Power of the Manly Penis, the rest of us just see a giant prick…

“When you pretend the other guy is so far beneath you you don’t even have to acknowledge him, you’re just being a weak asshole.”

Well, it can work, but it’s an all-or-nothing move.  And when you’re trailing the other guy in the polls, you’re going to get nothing.

John McCain did not look Obama in the eye so that Obama could not give McCain the evil eye and hypnotize him with his Voodoo magic. Only someone who has known Henry Kissinger for 35 years would know something like that.

Well, who cares. The polls and focus groups clearly indicated that normal people (a category which certainly doesn’t include Broderella) merely saw McCain’t being a dick, and didn’t like it.

To David Broder, all things McCain does are by definition, alpha, no matter how petty they actually are. Why hasn’t he been retired yet?

John McCain did not look Obama in the eye so that Obama could not give McCain the evil eye and hypnotize him with his Voodoo magic.

...Well now I have to link to it. XD

Obviously that only makes sense if you know what show that’s from. (I was going to link to the post I got it from, but it was members only.)

Broder is further evidence that McCain has solidified his hold on the grumpy old man demigraphic.

Was I the only person looking at that debate who thought that McCain’s “you don’t understand” was delivered in the classic Al Bundy “but I played a little high school football” manner?

The “My guy Petraus” was also like “my dad can beat up your dad”.

There are different kinds of submissive behavior.  Broder only understands the sycophantic version - the one seeking power.  McCain was evincing the reluctantly submissive surly teen mode.

Obama’s frequent glances in McCain’s direction

“Glances” is a HIGHLY loaded word here—it seems to suggest that Obama was seeking McCain’s approval, or waiting to be judged worthy.  It connotes coyness and shyness.  A neutral term would have been “looks,” not “glances,” and Broder knows that.  That ain’t how it looked to me, nor, I suspect, to virtually anyone else besides David Fucking Broder.

I guess Broder missed the very basic point that ignoring your opponent and fellow Senate colleague in a debate is just plain classless and rude.

Fortunately, most Americans recognized it for what it was.

I am amused at how creative the spinning gets from these rethuggy pundits.

Next thing you know they’ll be saying te McSame’s flop sweat was “man juice” and that Obama wasn’t sweating it was evidence that he’s “cold hearted” or some b.s. like that.

There were times during the debate when I was hoping that McSame would crack and just start shouting the racial epithets we all know are running through his mind. The would be some straight talk right there and an on camera freak out would go really far to showing everyone the horrible temper on this guy.

Of course the thug pundits would immeiately start spinning it as “Well Obama deserved it - what with being honest and stating facts and all...! It’s so “uppity"!" etc. etc.

Broder has been irrelevant for 15 years. I think they keep him at the Post out of loyalty and charity.

There are no “new” alpha male tools. Alpha behavior in our Simian cousins is similar, suggesting our earliest primate ancestors used some of hte same visual cues. And, put briefly, the low-ranking monkey won’t make eye-contact with his superior.
John Mccain gave away his own opinion of his chaces on Friday night.

When I said “civility” and “reaching across the aisle” were good things—I was referring to situations where the person across the aisle was a real (white) person, not a quasi-human homonculoid creature like niggers are!!

“I’m sure it’s possible that utter avoidance is the new alpha male tool, but that would be too good of news for the rest of us.”

Yeah, like not getting laid is a sure sign of virility.

The spin I haven’t heard, the lack of which surprises me, was that any flaws in McCain’s performance obviously came from his being tired from flying all over the country, going to high level meetings to solve the economic crisis, and generally being in charge of things in DC, while all Obama was doing was lounging in Florida prepping for the debate. Of course Obama looked more relaxed!

Maybe it’s a sign that there are more and more people unwilling to link themselves to a sinking ship. If they too clearly tie themselves to McCain, when he goes down, so will they, and they aren’t willing to risk it. I think we are beginning to see a lot more conservative pundits hedging their bets.

Just wish to point out-- having studied chimpanzee behavior in school to observe just these sorts of things-- that, in fact, not looking in someone’s direction CAN be a dominance tool-- if what you’re indicating is that the one being ignored is completely below your notice. If it was indeed how Jesse phrased it-- “utterly incapable of looking Obama in the eye"-- that’s a different story, of course.

In this particular situation, it was tough for me to judge that myself. This is because I watched the debate on the most common YouTube, which was taken from Fox News. Interestingly, the Fox News feed put the debaters in splitscreen most of the time, making them disembodied talking heads without any spatial orientation. It was pretty much impossible to tell exactly who or what they were looking at in any particular moment.

But, in terms of the other usual hallmarks of dominance (blinking less, smiling less, shifting gaze, gesturing less-- basically, in general the less you move, the stronger you seem), Obama definitely had the edge. It’s not that he was so incredibly strong, just that McCain was very weak in all of those regards.

None of this, of course, has anything to do with issues of substance. But, still interesting.

I don’t know what to make of McCain not looking at Obama. Not looking at, or conversely leering at, women is a common put-down tool of men toward women. Same with white men not looking at black men or women, bosses not looking at underlings or at servants, diners not looking at waitstaff. The attitude is not much different from that which causes dominant men (and white women, in case of race or servants) to persistently forget underlings’ names or to call underlings by first names while insisting angrily that they, the masters, must be called by last names.

Or, McCain is feeling beta. But I doubt this very much, politicians of his temperament have egos beyond any necessity to address the real situation.

Obama, on the other hand, is acting like a “race man” or any other proud member of a non-dominant group. He WILL act alpha, whether or not he feels alpha at the moment. Remember, only 54 years ago, blacks were getting lynched and otherwise killed for looking straight at white women (always) or white men (in a situation of defiance or independence). Looking away (and eyes down) from the white man was one of the most cited daily Jim Crow humiliations for blacks of both sexes.

mccains mouth said, with little evidence to support it, that he was better.  Repub flavored comments all ignored the body language but it was saying “damn I wish he’d go away”.  TPM has a comment from a researcher on primate behavior that backs up that conclusion.  But there was also a possibility mccain was choking on his famously short temper because he was still steamed that Obama had made him look worse [he already made himself look bad] at the “united front against the banking calamity” meeting in the oval office.

McCain did the same to his opponents in the primary debates, so I’m not sure it’s an Obama-specific behavior.  OTOH, he is rumored to strongly disdain Obama.  Today on Stephanopolous McCain said he “was paying attention to the American people” or some such crap.

It’s hard to know how much of this kind of stuff is scripted and how much just sneaks out.  If it was planned, was McCain trying to project dominance and just doing it badly or was he trying to communicate to the audience that Obama is below him?  If it isn’t planned, what exactly is the emotion that is sneaking out?  As much fun as body-language analysis is, if it you read it along with McCain’s words about “Obama doesn’t understand/is naive about X”, it sure looks like McCain truly believes Obama isn’t worthy of being his opponent.

Which is a great position for Obama to be in.  The more McCain underestimates Obama, the more he is going to flail and look like a blustery jackass.

At least on CNN, which I was watching, McCain didn’t “pay attention to the American people” at all—he didn’t look towards the camera so as to be seen looking right into the living rooms of the nation (and Obama definitely did in spots, not just at the closing).  McCain may have been looking into the crowd, or looking at Lehrer, but he didn’t look at Obama _or_ the camera.

The internals of a CNN post-debate poll showed women going to Obama in the debate by a large margin, but McCain enjoying an ever-so-slight lead among males. Also, more Democrats than Republicans watched the debate.

Its a depressing thought, but I can’t help thinking that, taken together, these two facts imply that at least some ostensibly left/liberal males were more powerfully influenced by McCain’s crude alpha male posturing than Obama’s calm, rational and gracious approach.

This is an outsider’s observation, since I’m South African - and its largely based on US cultural output (movies, literature, TV, news) as well as limited personal experience - but it seems to me that American men are far more likely to mix their hormones with their politics than the men of other developed nations.

I think there’s some kind of feedback loop at play and hopefully an Obama presidency will alter that dialog, acclimatizing US voters to the idea that primitive notions of manliness, rather than intelligence, sophistication and graciousness, have no real bearing on a politician’s leadership ability - in fact traits like crude aggressiveness and dominating behaviour are counter-productive in a leader at the helm of a modern, developed economy.

Its a depressing thought, but I can’t help thinking that, taken together, these two facts imply that at least some ostensibly left/liberal males were more powerfully influenced by McCain’s crude alpha male posturing than Obama’s calm, rational and gracious approach.

Not necessarily.  Don’t forget that white males tend to vote Republican by about a 60% majority, and they’ve done it for 30 years.  So even having a small swing towards Obama by male voters is pretty unusual.

How did Broder get his job?