McCain loves the crowds

If you had any hopes that Sen. John McCain’s town hall on health care would yield anything remotely informative, they were dashed early on.

But he sure can put on a show.

McCain told the crowd Saturday that “a town hall is the most important part of democracy today.” But this wasn’t about democracy or offering answers to one of the nation’s most pressing problems.

It was a love-fest, and he drank it in.

After giving a 20-minute rundown on Afghanistan and spending issues, McCain took about a half-dozen questions from the crowd in Sahuarita. But you never really got the sense he was listening. He interrupted speakers several times to tell unrelated stories or to make off-hand comments. He even ridiculed one woman for reading her question off a note card after it became apparent she wasn’t buying into the pep rally.

But none of that mattered. Many people walked away satisfied because they got to see “the maverick” in action, and it didn’t matter what he said. They weren’t there for answers, they just wanted to confirm that their man was still a pebble in the shoe of Congress and wasn’t backing down from anybody.

On that, McCain delivered.

He drew several rounds of applause and a rowdy “No!” when he asked if anybody felt better after all this stimulus spending. He then tossed out a line about Wall Street being plenty happy with what they got while Main Street — that’s us — continues to struggle.

What McCain doesn’t understand is that politics — liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, left or right — doesn’t matter to a lot of us. His time would have been better spent telling us how Wall Street got all that money, and how we’re going to repay all those stimulus dollars.

But it wasn’t a day for going deep.

On health care, McCain stuck to his script: We need portability of insurance, medical malpractice reform and we need to address wellness and fitness problems, especially in the young.

Great. So where’s his plan?

It was an easy afternoon for McCain, especially in comparison to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ town hall in Green Valley on Sept. 1. Giffords didn’t put herself centerstage, and gave the crowd answers. We may not have liked them all, but you had to hand it to her for putting something of substance on the table for people to chew on.

McCain delivered cotton candy.

He did have one surprise, but I don’t think he caught the irony.

“There is a certain oblivion in our nation’s capital (Congress) about the everyday problems our people have,” he said.

Couldn’t agree more. But maybe a staff member should tell the boss that he has been counted among the oblivious for more than 26 years. McCain was elected in 1983.

Maybe that’s why he fell so flat with some of us on Saturday. His national pursuits have left him out of touch with Arizonans for years.

But, hey, he did put on a good show. And for some people, unfortunately, that was enough.

— Dan Shearer