'That one' – more interesting language from McCain

ThatOne! (May be Photoshopped)

Continuing my policy of not commenting on the US presidential election, except where it touches on other topics I find more interesting, I couldn't resist taking a look at McCain's use of language in last night's 'town hall' debate. It's worth noting that Obama is widely seen as having won the debate, despite this 'town hall' nonsense apparently being one of McCain's big strengths. McCain has not seen the polling bounce he was looking for, so we can expect the negative campaigning to get worse.

What I really wanted to look at, though, was McCain's use of language during the debate. Firstly, his clumsy use of the salutation "My friends", a technique for winning votes which is not far removed from the door to door salesman's use of terms like "mate", "boss" or "darling". It won't work on enough people to swing any state and the sooner McCain stops trying to pretend he's not as aristocratic as Bush, the better. Bush gets away with it: McCain looks like he's terrified of getting caught out.

But the really interesting phrase that fell out of McCain's old, aristocratic mouth was when he referred to Obama as "That one", while refusing to even look at his opponent. While the BBC is reporting this phrase as making it look like "McCain wouldn't, or perhaps couldn't, say Obama's name", it seems to me that McCain wasn't just not saying something: he was obviously making some sort of point.

"That one" might sound simply rude the first time you hear it. But the expression actually carries some pretty nasty connotations. Some commentators on various sites have made it clear that "That one" is nothing less than an encoding of "That nigger", still in use in some southern states of the US. Therefore, it looks likely that McCain was using a code which will appeal to a certain part of his support base. Those who are as sick as he is of this "uppity" black man. How dare "that one" act like he can do whatever he likes?

The encodings that politicians use, especially in the build up to an election, are, I reckon, of great importance. Note how no one is capable of saying the words "working class" in an election campaign nowadays: everyone's been told they're midddle class now and they're damned if they're going to be relegated.

I actually think it would be hilarious if McCain and Palin won this election. What an indictment of the slavishly right-wing politics of the Democratic party it would be. And the chance of being there at the end of the world has to be something we could all be proud of. I mean, you've got to laugh, really. Right?

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