Where's the Empathy?

One of my takeaways from last night:

President Obama didn't thank the voter who opened by saying he voted for Obama in 2008. Instead, the president launched immediately into a programmatic answer - exactly as he did with the woman at the town hall who confessed she was weary of defending the president.

Have we ever had a pair of presidential candidates with so much combined intelligence - and yet so little affinity for their fellow human creatures?

Would it really be too difficult to say, "Thank you" or - even, let's go crazy here - pose a brief follow-up question that showed some interest in the individual man or woman before them as something more than a prop to support the next prefabricated set piece answer?