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McCain's 'that one' comment spurs debate

BY NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON | nia.henderson@newsday.com

October 9, 2008

The recent presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain might have produced the only oh-no-he-didn't moment so far. But it depends on whom you ask.

In a back-and-forth discussion Tuesday night of a Bush-Cheney energy bill, McCain had this to say about Obama:

"You know who voted for it? You might never know: that one," he said, pointing to, but not looking at, Obama as he sat nearby. "You know who voted against it? Me."

It wasn't the policy difference, it was the "that one" that got people talking, blogging and setting up Web sites hawking T-shirts yesterday. The comment didn't escape Obama's campaign team. Within minutes after McCain referred to the junior Illinois senator as "that one," an Obama spokesman e-mailed reporters - "Did John McCain just refer to Obama as 'that one?'"

McCain's campaign brushed off the comment and accused reporters of parsing words and distracting viewers from the substance of the town-hall-style debate, while others in his campaign pointed out a McCain riff on the stump where he says "that senator, not this senator," in setting himself apart.

So was it simply an offhand way of referring to an opponent, as some argued? Or was it a more dismissive, curmudgeonly and perhaps racially coded comment, akin to saying "you people," as others said?

"I thought he was trying to make a point using some sort of grammatical device, but because he flubbed a line, it came off as disrespectful and it was disrespectful," said Michael Fauntroy, a public policy professor at George Mason University. "I think he respects him, I just think he doesn't like that he is standing in the way. John McCain sees this as his appointment with history ... and sees Obama as an interloper."

What is clear is that there is no small amount of antipathy between these two candidates. The "that one" comment both spoke to that ill will and could have fueled more, according to Philip Dalton, a professor of speech communications at Hofstra University, site of Wednesday's final presidential debate.

For some, Dalton said, McCain's remark could play into a line of attack that began this summer when his campaign ran ads referring to Obama as "The One" and has since devolved into the take that Obama is unknown, different and dangerous.

"Referring to somebody as 'that one,' as opposed to by name, implies a distance between the two people and also implies a distance in terms of quality ... the one who is speaking is better than the one who is being referred to," he said. "If I were scripting something that an angry person would say about someone they didn't like, this would be it."