McCain's Temperature (Or: Tweak Me Out To The Ball Game)

Going back a few weeks, the topic of McCain's temper briefly grabbed the spotlight before being quickly shooed away.

I'm not saying that anger comes into play in this shot from Monday's WAPO Day In Photos.  What I feel the photo does demonstrate, however, is an intensity or an emotional ferocity to the man -- his affective thermostat fixed in a range most Americans might want to think twice or three times about before trusting McCain with more than a bag of peanuts.

From the caption, we know that McCain is attending an Arizona - NY baseball game;  that he's among fellow Arizona fans; and that he's standing beside the team CEO, Jeff Moorad.  From the image, combined with previous observation, I draw at least two conclusions about McCain's wiring, one having to do with emotional intensity, the other having to do with reactivity and its effect on the ability to process and respond to more complex emotional situations.

If you compare McCain's reaction to every other fan in the photo (considering both the tonal and gestural response of the crowd, and in particular, the five, maybe six people we can clearly make out), it is exponentially more intense.

I can't say if the excitement of competition is what lights his fire, or what, but you can't find another emotional display here that is even close (except, perhaps in that arm, lower right, with the wrist watch).  What it reflects -- echoed in interpersonal allusions in McCain's self-described history, as well as the oscillation in his patience on the campaign trail -- is the degree to which Mac is susceptible to intense emotional surges.

What is just as interesting, however, is what I describe as McCain's emotional reactivity.  What I'm referring to is not just the intensity of the response but also its speed, and how much that, too, differs from the crowd's.

What I mean is, if you study the other people in the photo, what you encounter are emotional reactions that are more complex and nuanced.  If you had to generalize, you could say they combine at least two different attributes, the first being approval and pleasure over what's happening on the field, but second, and the more prevalent one, a more open-ended curiosity, inquisitiveness and concern for what continues to unfold in front of them.

What scares me about McCain is not just the intensity of his emotions, but how their escalation is often based on snap-emotionally-based reactions to situations that are inherently more enduring and complicated.

Taking the picture as a modeling exercise, I'd feel a whole lot safer with a Commander-in-Chief more representative of the guy in the Hawaiian-looking shirt, the man in the red shirt, the lady in the turquoise and the white-haired guy to her right.  What you get in that package is a candidate with more awareness in the moment; more feeling informed by thought; more sustained attention; greater inquisitiveness; and more recognition of a larger picture.

Sen. McCain's Anger (Olbermann clip/Salon interview via YouTube)
John McCain: Yeah I Get Angry (video clip - CNN)
McCain: A Question of Temperament (WAPO)
McCain Grows Testy on Question About ’04 and Kerry Partnership (NYT)
In Anger, John McCain Berates Woman Representing POW Families (admittedly 1992 video -- C-SPAN via Oliver Willis)
WAPO Day in Photos, May 5, 2008

(image: Jeff Chiu - AP.  May 4, 2008.  Phoenix.  washingtonpost.com)

Comments

[Cactus]

Just a thought......I've heard that he has had three bouts with facial melanoma. I believe some kinds of melanoma can spread to the brain. Is it possible that the part of his brain that affects the awareness and regulation of emotional reactivity could be affected? Perhaps that is why he is delaying release of his medical records........

Of course his quick (bad) temper is well documented, but maybe something is causing an aggravation of a bad situation.

[Books Alive]

McCain was on the Daily Show last night. Forget what caused it, but he jumped up and turned, about to walk off. The theme had been how an earlier appearance on Jon's show revitalized his campaign. Jon gave him an extra-long segment, unlike his many quickie author interviews.

Yeah! MSNBC just played it (and I suspect that you could find it on YouTube):

McCain was asked if he'd "reject and renounce" George Bush's policies. At that he stood, waved, then was called to sit back down.

[black dog barking]

Baseball games resolve without time pressure — the end of the game is determined by a prescribed number of outs, not the countdown of a game clock. This is a big reason that baseball's game face is different from that of clock sports. One does not get fired up. Instead, you aim for a state of relaxed, focused attention. You loosen up.

Fans mimic the players. In the picture it looks like the home team has just scored, likely a home run. (I'm guessing the fact the candidate is still at the game means we're in the early innings. VIPs and Angelinos leave early, avoid the rush.) Sen McCain, as noted, is alone in the exuberance of his response. Perhaps he's not a fan. Perhaps he's putting on a bit of a show to impress those around him, win their support.

Which raises a question. How does one decompress from spending literal months in a 24/7 spotlight, putting on shows to win the support of a dizzying parade of locals? There seems a risk that one forgets to stop acting when the campaign stops. Or maybe, the campaign never stops.

[Weisseharre]

pastiesfaced

[Dale]

Books Alive,

That reaction of "fake outrage" (like jumping up and walking off stage on TDS) is something that McCain consistently uses as a (pretty tired) gag in his stump appearances. Basically, he does it any time he's asked a pointed or confrontational question. Someone asked him about his temper recently, and I think he said something like, "how dare you ask that question!" and then giggled and snorted.

I'm no psychologist, but it seems to be a way for him to buy time while he suppresses his more genuine emotional reaction to the question. Couple this with other instances of fairly inappropriate humor from his campaign ("Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran," etc.), it comes across as a little insecure, as the reaction of someone who can't maintain a straight face and answer the question candidly, for fear that some really unvarnished point of view might come out.

As for the picture, I'm actually inclined to give McCain the benefit of the doubt -- or at least, interpret it differently. To me, it just looks like he's making that usual mistake of politicians, by trying too hard -- trying to telegraph to the camera how unimpeachable a baseball fan he is. It wouldn't do if the camera sweeping over the crowd attributed to him the *least* impassioned response to a run or base hit.

[Karen]

Very interesting...I see similar reactions from pre-school kids all the time....something excites them far more than the adults in the group...

[donna]

I was talking to my shrink yesterday and McCain came up. Where does one begin? An admirals son who never measured up, a prisoner of war, living on his wife's inherited money - the psychological effects of all that are even more screwed up than Dubyas. The man is a disaster waiting to happen, even worse than Bush. That is what scares me.

[Johanna]

Just his experience as a pow for that long, while admirable, might also disqualify someone. The fury and sense of suffering an injustice that would be your daily experience, having to take all kinds of crap from captors. How could someone ever discharge the anger that would build just from that? Maybe he was using the game as a legitimate occasion to scream and vent, something he seems to need to do.

[Asta]

Google "John McCain +Songbird" and you will get a whole different picture of McCain's experiences as a "POW".

[cenoxo]

Sheer shutter luck and plain old pain. From the February 2007 Vanity Fair:

McCain's right knee still has limited flexibility. Most of the time this is not too noticeable, but McCain mounts the steps onto planes with a herky-jerky gait. A climb up dozens of steps at the New Hampshire International Speedway, in Loudon, leaves him badly winded and sweating profusely. Because his broken arms were allowed to heal without ever being properly set, to this day McCain cannot raise his arms above his shoulders. He cannot attend to his own hair. An aide is often nearby with a comb and small can of hair spray.

However — in this case at least — BnN has no difficulty in raising the level of speculative photo/psychoanalysis.

[paulimorph]

well now, agreed, that gob ain't right...