It's The Obama-McCain Show

Paired together, this road trip could rival Hope and Crosby, or even Borat and Azamat

By Lisa Van Dusen | Sun Media |Sunday, June 8, 2008

The buddy/road trip movie has been one of the most enduringly successful formulas in Hollywood precisely because it combines the most sure-fire elements of the corny screenwriting canon: A kooky odd-couple embarks on a narrative arc fuelled by a quest for something; a Holy Grail, stolen diamonds, the leadership of the free world.

Of all the strange buddy bedfellows in history, John McCain and Barack Obama are really no stranger than Hope and Crosby, Grodin and DeNiro or Borat and Azamat.

The elevator pitch that an old, white, hotheaded war hero embarks on a tour of America with an unflappable, swaggering young black idealist is so rife with possibilities, all you'd have to say is, "It'll make Planes, Trains and Automobiles look like Love Story!" and you'd have your development deal.

The idea of a string of town hall meetings between now and August with the presumptive Democratic and presumptive Republican nominees ("Ladies and gentlemen, the world's hardest working candidates: The Presumptives") not just appearing on the same stage in a non-debate format, but possibly travelling on the same plane now looms on the horizon like a mirage of bipartisan harmony after weeks of intrapartisan toxicity.

There is something quintessentially American, in the best possible sense, about the idea of McCain and Obama taking their you-say-tomahto show on the road, not in a debate format like the historic Lincoln-Douglas series of 1858, but something less formal.

It conjures Capra-esque scenes of small-town caravans with mothers pushing strollers, scuffy boys dragging little red wagons, senior citizens in walkers ... black, white, old, young, Republican, Democrat and Independent, all wanting to see the oddest political couple since Nikolas and Carla.

The backstory here, and there always has to be a pre-existing conflict so that the road trip starts off with a palpable sense of tension, is that McCain and Obama were friendly when the hotshot senator arrived on the Hill from Chicago in 2004, but then they had a fight.

In early 2006, Obama promised to co-operate with McCain on lobbying reform legislation and then backed down under pressure from the Democratic leadership, prompting a knee-to-the-groin response exceptional in its chippiness, even by McCain standards.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU

"I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman senator," McCain wrote in a letter that became the talk of the town, "and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness. Again, I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn't always a priority for every one of us. Good luck to you, senator."

By Washington standards, it was an old dog/new dog territorial marking exercise, likely fuelled by spotlight envy, given that the media, who McCain once jokingly referred to as "my base" because of his generally positive coverage, had scurried in one giant, organic, haloed scrum to his new rival.

Since then, the two have made up, resuming a friendly cross-the-aisle relationship. But with all that change vs. experience, new vs. old, old school vs. Ivy League pressure lurking just below the backslapping and handshaking, the potential is there for a pretty good fight scene (hopefully more akin to old brawler Will Danaher vs. young pugilist Sean Thornton in The Quiet Man than Borat vs. Azamat).

Based on a plan John F. Kennedy and Barry Goldwater had discussed for the 1964 campaign (they had also talked about using the same plane), the idea of McCain-Obama town halls with no media moderator has been rumoured for a few months, so both campaigns have had plenty of time to think about it.

Town halls have worked brilliantly in previous campaigns, usually as a way for underdogs to showcase their policy chops and feed the notion of a dynamic alternative to a tired incumbent.

In 1992, Bill Clinton and Al Gore used their town halls to sell the two-wonks-for-one idea, only they took the bus, which, given what we know about the two of them now, must have included a few slapstick, odd couple moments.

After nearly eight years of exploited polarization under the Bush administration followed by the past few months of strategic electoral balkanization during the primary process, a little bipartisan mojo could be a very welcome plot twist for America.

And as buddy movies go, it could make for excellent summer entertainment.