'Town-hall McCain:' Expectations game

by Mark Silva

With so many people today suggesting that John McCain needs a "game-changer'' in his debate with Barack Obama tonight, the Democratic Party is happy to hold the GOP's presidential nominee to that standard.

After all, the DNC suggests, the "town-hall'' styled format of tonight's debate at 9 pm EDT in Nashville is signature McCain -- the sort of format in which he has campaigned for many years. McCain called out Obama for more of these sort of town-hall encounters earlier in the campaign.

In other words, it's McCain's comfort zone, his home-field advantage.

To make the point, the party has assembled all the pundit-babble about what a great venue this is for McCain, how tonight's stage is perfectly suited to the Republican (see the mindless repetition of the theme in the video clips pasted together above).

In other words, as the DNC puts it, "Since McCain is the undisputed champion of the town hall, anything less than a game-changing performance tonight would be major disappointment.''

They are happy, in other words, to set the bar of expectations for tonight isomewhere at about the altitude of the Moon, so that anything else launches a dud.