The debate on split screen: Shades of Kennedy/Nixon in 1960

Though the post-debate snap polls and focus groups seemed to indicate a decisive win for Barack Obama in last night’s final presidential debate, John McCain caught one big break: The debate presentation on the broadcast and cable networks used the split-screen shot of both candidates sparingly, thus saving McCain from a fate akin to the one a sweaty Richard Nixon suffered in 1960.

The relative handful of viewers who watched the debate on C-SPAN, which routinely features a split screen throughout the proceedings, were treated to a 90-minute catalog of expressive tics on McCain’s part worthy of the Three Stooges’ commander-in-chief, Moe Howard. During most of the interludes when Obama was speaking, McCain looked like a man being alternately tickled with a feather and poked in the leg with a salad fork by an Obama-friendly midget lurking under the table, or a man seized by some new, nonverbal form of Tourette’s Syndrome.

Or perhaps McCain always seems this bored and distracted when other people are talking. But it was something to behold, and the McCain campaign is lucky that not very many people beheld it.

Here, for the record, is the whole thing as seen on C-SPAN’s split screen. It’s really worth clicking into a clip or two to watch. Time permitting, Paul Schmelzer will post a mash-up of the many faces of McCain later on.

Part I


Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

Part IX