You'd think he was running for Toastmaster. Standing in front of a wall of glass last night with the lights of midtown Manhattan sparkling behind him, John McCain put aside the petty sniping of the campaign trail and asked the elite names gathered for the Time 100 Gala--Dan Senor, Campbell Brown, Rahm Emanuel, Paul Wolfowitz, Lance Armstrong, Brian Williams, Joe Scarborough--to raise their glasses to his Democratic opponents. "Senator Obama is a man of unusual eloquence, who has performed the very worthy service of summoning to the political arena Americans who once wrongly thought it of little benefit to them," he said. "Senator Clinton has demonstrated great tenacity and courage; two qualities I have always esteemed. I count myself among their many admirers. Please join me, then, in a toast to my opponents and compatriots, Senators Clinton and Obama, and to the noisy, contentious, striving, beautiful country we hope to lead." Somewhere, a bald eagle shed a single tear.

Kidding aside, McCain's kind words would've been almost enough to warm the cold cockles of this cynic's heart--if, a mere two hours earlier, top aide Mark Salter hadn't slammed "Obama's new brand of politics" as "hypocrisy." "First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity," wrote an incensed Salter in a memo to reporters. "It is the oldest kind of politics there is."

Dizzy, anyone? Welcome to the High/Low campaign. For politicos salivating over the start of the general-election slugfest--or those of you simply eager to turn the page on this interminable Democratic primary contest--yesterday provided a tantalizing preview of what a McCain-Obama face-off will look like come fall. Think split-personality disorder. Politics, of course, is about competition, and every politician needs (and, in truth, wants) to throw a few elbows. McCain and Obama are no different. But both of this year's candidates have built their unusually strong political brands on the perception that they are, in some sense, "cleaner than thou": McCain is the honorable, straight-talking war hero bent on reform and eager to reach across the aisle; Obama is the vibrant, youthful catalyst of a new politics of unity rather than division. The result: a race in which each candidate burnishes his brand by constantly stressing his own civility--but instead of refraining from attacks on his rival, simply attacks his rival's every remark as evidence that said rival has broken his promise to be civil. You're a typical politician! No, you're a typical politician! First the high, then the low.

Yesterday's prototypical spat started on Wednesday, when McCain appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and defended his earlier characterization of Obama as Hamas's candidate of choice. ""Do you feel bad that you said that?" Stewart asked. "They think I’m their worst nightmare," McCain replied, noting that a U.S. Hamas spokesman had confessed that the group was hoping Obama would be elected president. "And I think that I’m their worst nightmare as well." McCain was trying, of course, to contrast his considerable foreign-policy cred with Obama's relative inexperience--a contrast that he hopes will define the campaign. Sure, one could make the case that McCain, who called for "civil campaign" in early April, was crossing some sort of line. After all, Obama's position on Hamas is indistinguishable from McCain's--he says it's a terrorist organization and refuses to negotiate unless they recognize Israel and renounce violence. What's more, there's something slightly unfair about suggesting that Obama is soft on terror simply because some Hamas spokesman thinks he will "lead the world community... with[out] domination and arrogance." But I'd say McCain's swipe is hardly a gross moral outrage--and it's certainly no worse than Obama constantly mischaracterizing McCain's support for a passive, South Korean-style military presence in Iraq as "100 years of war."

Predictably, Obama saw it differently--and that's when the cleaner-than-thou festivities began. Speaking to Wolf Blitzer yesterday on CNN, he reacted to McCain's remarks with a theatrical show of pity. "This is offensive," he said. "And it's disappointing, because John McCain always says he's not going to run this kind of politics, so to engage in that kind of smear is unfortunate." Oh, the sorrow of it all. But Obama wasn't done. "It's an example," he added, twisting the knife, "of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination." By "losing his bearings," Obama meant, of course, that McCain was betraying his maverick rep by pandering to his party's hawkish right-wingers for his own political gain--which is a pretty edgy attack in and of itself. But the McCain camp quickly accused him not of straightforward nastiness but of (gasp!) subliminal ageism--the more Machiavellian charge. "Let us be clear about the nature of Senator Obama's attack today," wrote Salter. "He used the words 'losing his bearings' intentionally, a not particularly clever way of raising John McCain's age as an issue." A-ha!, he practically crowed. It's Obama who's the sketchy pol--not McCain! Team Obama's response, via spokesman Bill Burton? "It’s clear why a candidate offering a third term of George Bush’s disastrous economic policies and failed strategy in Iraq would want to distract and attack, but it’s not the kind of campaign John McCain has promised the American people that he would run." Broken promises, blah, blah, blah. After which Burton added, "Nanny nanny boo boo."

The truth is, both Obama and McCain are engaging in what Salter called "the oldest kind of politics there is"--attacking their opponent, distorting his record and sending out surrogates to question his integrity. It's just that they've both premised their campaigns on civility--and thus are both relying on "incivility" (rather than, say, issues) as the prime ammunition for their attacks. On the Today show yesterday morning, McCain's wife Cindy insisted that her "husband is absolutely opposed to any negative campaigning at all." "I believe we're going to see a great debate, which the American public deserves," she said. "None of this negative stuff, though, you won't see it come out of our side -- at all." Sorry, Cindy--if yesterday was any indication, we're in for plenty of negativity before November. I'm not sure a slapfest over who has the least integrity is what America wants right now. But I fully expect McCain and Obama to keep making every effort to claim the high ground--even if they have to take the low road to get there. 

Cheers.