Election Explainer of the Day

How to Draw the Candidates;

Senator McCain is a bouncy, exuberant, freewheeling type. His face shows youthful energy, irrespective of his 71 years. All of his features are tiny, like those of a small animal, a gerbil or chipmunk. (Is he hiding missiles in those cheeks?)

I have him here in fedora with dangling cigarette, closer to the senator his close associates know: a stubborn, foul-mouthed, angry fighter. His “100 years in Iraq” statement suggests there’s much more going on.

Hillary Clinton has a long, sloping nose that draws her face down and almost crowds out her mouth, which is small and feisty. It is as if her face twists to accommodate her various constituent groups.

I see a kind of conflict in there. The eyes are round and open all the way at times, as if astonished at all this. There is also something in her intensity that bears rendering. In her sullen, victimized, enemy-listing, openness-averse, highly ambitious mien there may be some traces of latent Nixon chromosomes.

Senator Obama’s thinness is useful in approaching the idea of his being a little light in the resumé, which is a popular perception. I carry this idea into the head where only the features have meat. The areas in between seem to get spare — like those primary districts in between cities.