I noticed this in the last debate, but it became very striking in this one, just because the repetition of the theme made it noticeable. As we all know, McCain is not a young man. He’s 72 years old, and his age has been an issue in this election. Despite the importance of this issue, especially given his choice of Palin as his VP pick, someone on the McCain team has utterly failed to kick a very telling habit out of him in debate prep.

He’s standing there on stage next to a vibrant, engaged, youthful opponent, and the political references McCain made were to:

• Herbert Hoover - Born August 10, 1874. Current age: 134. (Dead.)
• Teddy Kennedy - Born February 22, 1932. Current age: 76. (Dying.)
• Tip O’Neill - Born December 9, 1912. Current age: 95. (Dead.)
• Ronald Reagan - Born February 6, 1911. Current age: 97. (Dead.)
• Teddy Roosevelt - Born October 27, 1858. Current age: 150. (Dead.)

McCain’s reference points for political leadership have an average age of more than 110. The youngest person mentioned is Reagan, who would only be two years older than McCain were he not mulching flower beds in California. They are uniformly white, uniformly male, and almost uniformly dead.

This is not how to position yourself as contemporary, forward looking and in touch with the electorate when your age and the VP who will take over your job when you keel over and die in office are your chief liabilities. I don’t think it lost him the debate or anything (though I do think he lost it), but it is something I haven’t seen mentioned in the press, so I thought I’d throw it out there.