Presidential Debate Numero Dos Thoughts

Posted by Chris Connolly on 10.07.2008

Ugh.

Before I get to the performances themselves, I have a couple of problems. First of all, this was supposed to be a townhall debate, not a "Tom Brokaw asks a bunch of questions along with the audience" debate. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with the questions he posed or anything like that, it's just he wasn't supposed to be asking any questions in the first place. Also, if you're going to agree to a certain set of rules for a debate, follow them. Brokaw spent part of the night acting like an exasperated babysitter who couldn't get the kids to behave.

Anyway, once again I think McCain won on substance, but not by a margin large enough to be considered the unquestioned winner. He once again highlighted his record of experience and working across the aisle. I also thought he went into specifics a lot more than Obama did, and as someone who likes details more than soaring rhetoric, that was a plus for me. I also thought that his overall tone was much more positive than Obama. Every time he addressed a problem, he was always sure to mention his belief that the American people can fix it. The one real downfall I saw from him tonight was the joking around. It works great on the trail, but for an audience that is barely allowed to breathe, they don't come off well on TV.

My big problem with McCain tonight though was what he didn't say. What little record Obama does have is full of stuff that is begging to be used as attack material, and not just the earmarks. The decisions he made while at the Annenburg Challenge with Bill "I targeted public servants and their families with bombs and I'm not sorry" Ayers which turned that program into a miserable failure are easy to go after. Deciding to hand money from another non-profit to Yasser Arafat's right hand man is something no one from McCain's campaign will mention. Hell, how about mentioning the fact that one of the slum lords he looked the other way for during his state senate days is one of his senior advisors?

And one final note to the McCain campaign: what fucking right does the Treasury Department have to buy up mortgages and then change the terms? The correct answer is none. The government is supposed to enforce contracts, not change them whenever one party made a mistake in signing it. That's as dumb an idea as Biden's "let's let the courts change interest rates and principal" bullshit from last week.

Obama avoided making any major gaffes aside from being completely incoherent on Russia and stopping some genocides, and if Biden got to skate after lying through his teeth during the VP debate, Obama is surely in the clear for any goofs he might have made. However, I really have to question his math skills, since you can't give a tax break to 95% of the people when 30% already don't pay any income tax. But then again, when working on the AC he did reject giving money to math programs in order to fund a diversity program. In the end, it was more of the same stuff we've been hearing from him for the last 15 months.

This entire thing was a waste of time. We already knew Obama would say the same things he's been saying all along. We already knew McCain would talk about what he's done before and say "my friends" a lot. All tonight did was push me closer to voting for Bob Barr.