For the most part, viewers and pundits look for gaffes and comments that prove to be turning points in presidential debates such as Gerald Ford’s blunder about Eastern Europe or Reagan’s one liner about age. But what is equally, if not more, important are the more subtle and cumulative effects of posture, timing, and demeanor that form an overall impression in the hearts and minds of voters, so many of whom are looking with serious interest for the first time. It’s really our first date and it’s important to leave a good impression.

The problem for John McCain was that he didn’t do that. While he has tried to ape his hero Ronald Reagan over his career, McCain has always been wound too tight to pull it off and that was evident last night. Where Reagan could be tough and even menacing, he could also tell a joke in relaxed good humor, something the Arizona senator has never been able to do. McCain has always followed his scripted jokes with disturbing facial twitches and a nervous little cackle. He never been able to exude any sort of charm at all, and last night he was uptight, sanctimonious and downright contemptuous. He never even looked Senator Obama in the eye one time. He fidgeted and grimaced through a face tighter than Joan Rivers’ and people don’t like that. People viscerally don’t like to be around those who are uncomfortable in their own skin.

The big problem for McCain’s snarky first date was it’s effect on the most important constituency in this election- women. McCain enjoys the customary Republican lead among men, particularly white men, and Obama leads among the young and “people of color.” It is women voters who will decide the battleground states where this election will be won or lost. Where McCain’s performance no doubt resonated with white, Republican leaning, men, it very likely widened his gap with women. The initial CNN/Opinion Research polling found that while men slightly preferred McCain, 46% to 43% to Obama, women preferred Obama by a whopping 28 points, 59% to 31%. You can bet these numbers have sent new anguish through the McCain camp.

The problem for McCain is that women are usually more patient than men and usually take the longer view. They tend to be the savers in the family and they don’t generally get into fights over a spilled drink or a traffic incident- and often have to talk their men down for their own good. McCain came across as exactly that guy last night- the guy who just pops off and wants to kick some ass without a thought to the long term consequences. The same, of course, is true of George W. Bush and that hasn’t exactly served us all too well.

Women also do not like to be patronized, and McCain’s sneering barbs about “what Senator Obama doesn’t understand…” were just this side of “don’t worry your pretty little head.” And, as viewers could plainly see, Senator Obama was clearly never at a loss of understanding. And equally important, McCain’s arrogant bombast never ruffled him. Obama came across as the guy who, instead of confronting the belligerent drunk, is the man who knows it would not be good for his family for him to wake up with a broken jaw or in a jail cell. It was telling that McCain’s most outrageous line of the night, trying to compare Obama with George W. Bush, simply brought a laugh and a big smile from the Illinois senator.

Coming out of this debate, the core and indelible problem for John McCain is that women, generally speaking, though Cindy McCain apparently excluded, don’t like assholes. And that is exactly what he is and it showed.

Democrats all over America are scratching their heads at the poll numbers. You see blog after email after rant laying out how much smarter Barack Obama is, how dim and gaffe prone John McCain is, and even comparisons of the marital virtues of the two men. For so many Obama supporters this seems to be such a “no-brainer” they can’t understand what’s going on- or in the most clueless cases, to blame it on “race.” The reality is that those who wonder why this race remains so tight fundamentally do not understand this country and it’s people, and why smart Democrats keep losing presidential elections to the dismal likes of George Bush.

What Democrats keep failing to understand is that in democracies, elections are won by relating to the rural, working folks, that some call the “lowest common denominator.” No candidates for president or prime minister do photo ops with university faculty or captains of industry. They go out of their way to be seen with people in overalls with cows, with line workers in safety goggles, and police. It is always in places like that where you find national identity- the Ford ad sort of stuff. But if you are not genuinely from that experience, you cannot win nationally without pandering to it and smart, well educated Democrats from Adlai Stevenson to Barack Obama have had real trouble doing that. When they go to county fairs or factories it’s inauthentic and they feel self-conscious doing it and it shows. Democrats can’t do diners so the folks who eat in them don’t vote for them.

Republicans win because they speak “diner.” They simplify complex issues into “right and wrong” ideas that closely follow identifiable guidelines- “values”- that most Americans understand. It’s why they do proportionally well in places where life strives for simplicity and not very well in urban, diverse and complex areas. Primary among these “values” is the notion of “us” verses “them” which is the currency of any national identity. Republicans know how to be “us” better than Democrats, who they successfully paint, over and over, as “them” which is why Democrats lose nationally over and over- and is why Barack Obama, despite the naked and breathtaking wreckage of the Bush era, can’t crack 50% in the polls.

People want candidates to be like them, just as they need to relate to characters in books or movies for them to be successful. They relate to people in whom they see similarities even if they don’t fully understand their policies and ideas. A lot of people voted for Ronald Reagan because his campaign team was so successful in making him “American” in that iconic, John Wayne, way even though most voters didn’t understand “trickle down economics” or what his administration was really doing. The same was true of George W. Bush.

Americans who do actually vote do so on their guts and assume whoever wins will do the right thing because they can’t approach it emotionally any other way. Those who believe politicians are all liars and thieves- a third or more of the country- don’t bother to vote at all but those Americans who do vote do so in this broad sense. They don’t really understand the complexities of the issues of the day and they don’t really try to second guess policy. They just get a feeling about a candidate, and the promises or positions they seem to take, and go with it. For so many Americans, particularly those between California and New York, the candidate who connects with their gut is the one who looks and talks like someone they’d see around town.

There is hope, however. The mess on Wall Street, and the vivid reminder of Bush/Republican overreach should upset enough people, and Obama’s impressive ground game of offices and paid organizers in battleground states should be enough to squeak this through- if and ONLY if- 18 to 30 year olds make it to the polls. There is no doubt that Obama is the future of America- diverse, complex and ready to dramatically change the way we have done business and intellectually reformat how America does business. The only question will be whether Americans are finally fed up enough to elect someone who is not “one of us” to step in and fix this mess or whether they will continue to live in denial about the “greatest country on Earth” and turn once again to the grandpa they know and the values they share who tells them what they want to hear- that it ain’t so bad.