Laughing at himself...

This morning, I watched the news and listened to NPR. I just caught the tail end of a fluff story on ABC about John McCain at cancer forum hosted by Lance Armstrong. And then, as part of a larger political piece, I heard excerpts from that event.

Let me go back for a moment and preface all of this: I may be liberal, but I'm not completely sold on Obama. I like his message, I like him, and I'm eager to hear more concrete plans from him (this also applied to McCain).

These excerpts I heard, they don't make me nervous, but they don't make me like McCain or establish the personal connection I need to have with him. When he speaks, he trails off, as if he's not totally convinced of what he's saying. I never feel like he's completing a thought. My impression is that the only promise he's not afraid of making is that we have WIN in Iraq (totally different story, when did it become about winning? I understand the "Mission Accomplished" thing, but when did it become a competition? Is that just because U.S. citizens are perceived by their government to need to see things in such black and white terms?).

The thing that makes me most uncomfortable is this: He laughed at his own jokes before anyone else laughed. I know, this sounds petty, but it speaks a lot to his personality today.

In 2000, I switched from being an independent to being Republican so that I could vote for McCain in the New Hampshire primary. The man running then was a confident, seasoned maverick. He could cross party lines with ease as he spoke to the genuine concerns of the U.S. middle class. In many ways, the campaign he ran then, the message he had, reminds me of Obama's now.

But today, the laughing thing says a lot about a loss of confidence. Over the past eight years, McCain was changed. He's moved more to the political conservative side while trying to keep his hand in with moderates. It hasn't worked, I don't think. A lot of people look at his changes in stance as selling out. Where is the the McCain of 2000?

Now, we have an McCain who's confidence has been cut from under him. It makes me feel as though he still has the same principles and ideas that he had then, but now he feels the need to bow to pressures to support ideas he doesn't believe in or place high priority on.

And now, we have someone who laughs at his own jokes.