If you want to get really hammered during your debate drinking game, then watch the pre-and-post debate coverage and ad “game-changer” to the list of words. With Election Day rapidly approaching, and Obama’s lead looking increasingly insurmountable with each new poll, the punditry is looking at tonight’s debate as perhaps McCain’s last chance to change the dynamics of the horse race.

 

I don’t think there is anything that McCain can do tonight, though, to score this elusive game-changer. Sure Obama could have a major gaffe, but my guess is that whatever McCain says to try to shake things up will fall on deaf ears. Judging from both Obama’s large wins in the prior post debate polls and CNN’s repugnant real-time dial tester that often goes flat when McCain speaks, America seems to be tuning out John McCain.

 

There are lots of good reasons why his campaign message isn’t resonating. Most important among them is that he doesn’t appear to have an organizing campaign message. Instead, he’s employing a kitchen sink strategy to try to overcome the horrific hand he has been dealt by a political party in disrepair.

 

For all of the legitimate reasons to tune out McCain I can’t help but wonder how much of it has to do with his age. Way back in March 2007, for instance, a Gallup Poll revealed that only 42 percent of Americans were completely comfortable voting for a 72 year old, compared to 84 and 77 percent for black and female presidential candidates respectively. Moreover, Simon Jackman (Stanford University) estimates that upwards of 40 percent of Obama backers cite age as a reason for not supporting Senator McCain.

 

This idea of voters taking McCain’s age into account strikes me as unreasonably antiquated. After all, seventy is the new fifty. Yet it also strikes me as entirely plausible that a sizable proportion of the population discounts what McCain has to say because they view him as too old to have the fresh ideas needed to get out of its current rut.

 

So assuming the focus group lines again go flat on McCain’s words tonight, will his inability to connect merely be the result of championing discredited Republican governing ideals? Or is it also a case of us simply tuning out grandpa?