"A Steady Hand at the Tiller"

"A Steady Hand at the Tiller"

Both candidates used the cryptic final question in the second debate tonight to essentially make closing statements. McCain got the last statement of the debate and closed in the worst way possible. His last line was about America needing "a steady hand at the tiller" in these tough times.

There are 5 key problems with this closing:

1) By closing with a blatant attack, knowing that he got the final word, McCain came across as the angry, bitter man that he is.

2) What's a tiller? OK, I know what a tiller is, but the phrase is antiquated in the computer age. Using that phrase made McCain seem old and out of touch.

3) Speaking of old, when I hear the phrase "steady hand", the image that pops into my mind is NOT of a septuagenarian.

4) A "steady hand" has never been McCain's trademark anyway. He is known to be something of a hothead, so selling himself as the "steady hand" is a hard sell.

5) After watching Obama give a steady, calm, and presidential performance for the previous 90 minutes, the line of attack was not going to work anyway.

"That one" may be the phrase that gets the most attention in the next few days, especially if McCain is forced to deny that it was in any way racist. It was the low point in the debate to be sure. The "steady hand" line wasn't as bad as referring to Obama as "that one" but it more clearly illustrates for me just how out of touch McCain really is. For me, "steady hand" trumps "that one" simply because his angry reference to Obama clearly illustrated that McCain does not have a "steady hand".

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"A Steady Hand at the Tiller"