I'll give John McCain props. He knows how to pander to the base with the best of them and he carried himself enough with the base to have a sucessful forum.
But he also did something else....
He totally screwed himself when it comes to independents and centrist Democrats who hate the Republican base and everything it stands for. He became generic Republic for any independent watching, as the Independent line on C-Span attested to.
One of Obama's key goals in going into this forum was three fold. One reason was to get a little support from the evangelical community. He knows on instinct that he isn't going to get a majority of them, but he does hope to get enough of them to make a difference. His second goal was to make sure that those evangelicals didn't hate him. They don't have to like him, just make sure that they know he's not the boogieman people think he is. I don't know how well he did on that score, but I think he did pretty well. His third goal, which brings me back to the post topic, was to show moderates that in in comparision to John McCain, he was sincere and he was most importantly sane. That he is able to listen to different points of views and different types of people.
John McCain did not show that tonight. He showed how much of an intolerant tool of the right he is. He showed independents and moderates that he is a generic Republican. Obama is going to use that to his advantage because John McCain just gave him enough footage to prove it.
This was the first step in the death of the Maverick. And it was the birth of John McCain, generic Republican.