Thoughts on the first Presidential debate

I watched the debate last night, quickly pulled what transcripts I could and perused those.  I watched clips again last night and this morning.  Last night, I was struck at how meandering McCain was in this debate focused on his alleged strong points.  This morning, after some rehashing, I’m just embarrassed by him.  His answers and tone made him sound like he had taken debate lessons from Governor Palin.  Very few times did answer, let alone address the question asked.  That made for some headache-inducing responses.

Obama could have been less agreeable with McCain.  Last night, I got exasperated, “Stop agreeing with him!” and the blogosphere came to the same conclusion.  Yet, in a live situation, it’s easy to get so wound up, that you miss the rest of the answer and that’s exactly what happened.  After Obama would say, “I agree with you John…” everything else got lost.  In looking back and listening, there was always a qualifier, and then Obama would cooly and smartly lay out the differences in ideology between the two Senators.

Last night’s debate was McCain’s to lose and he did.  In a big way.  This debate was to speak to McCain’s strength in foreign policy and the face he presented to Americans should give them pause as to how he’d deal with foreign heads of  state.  The warmongering bluster was bad enough, but in refusing to address, let alone look at Obama, McCain came off as a condescending, petulant child.  We’ve already had 8 years of a president who played the bully on the world stage, do we need or want another 4 or 8 years of the same?

Obama shared with us a simple truth: Our current economy has a huge impact on our foreign policy abilities.  McCain’s responses showed us a man who was a throwback to the 50s, strongly believing that America can and should buy her way out of any mess.  Sadly, we lack the funds and our debt is ridiculously high.

In an effort to show his vast experience, McCain decided to share with us old stories.  Generally speaking, stories have a way to humanize a politician and allow him or her to connect with voters.  McCain’s speaking style and lack of focus to his answers failed to connect.  Instead they made him come off as avoiding the issue, sounding more like that relative you let go on and on out of deference over any real interest in what he’s saying.  The other unfortunate circumstance of McCain’s stories is that it only served to remind you that he voted and stood with the party who brought us to our current situation at home and abroad.

The partisans will be quick to conclude that their candidate won the debate, but this debate wasn’t about nailing down the base.  With our current economic and foreign policies in disarray, this debate was about independents and undecideds.  McCain needed to show undecideds that he understood the way the world worked.  Obama needed to convince them that he wasn’t ignorant on world matters.  What we saw was that Obama has a much firmer grasp on our situation today, whereas McCain is stuck in a 40 year time loop that started in 1943 and ends in 1983. Polls taken of independents and undecideds right after the debate showed that they overwhelmingly thought that Obama has won the debate.  With a months worth of bad press and diving poll numbers, McCain couldn’t afford to lose this debate.  But he did.

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  • Like most partisans, you believe your man won.

    I viewed it as a draw - McCain didn't inflict any damage, and Obama didn't look unpresidential. I don't see the needle moving one way or another.

    While Obama was claiming what he stood for, McCain spoke of the actions he had taken. No real slam on Obama... he just hasn't been around long enough to talk about what he has done - only what he wants to do.

    And while McCain was pointing out what he had done, such as his co-sponsored bill to reform Fannie and Freddie, he failed to show how his leadership on those issues resulted in a benefit for the country... other than the surge in Iraq. Like Obama, to be for or against something without creating a coalition doesn't really help you.

    So once again, I say I don't believe this has moved the needle much. Kinda like the conventions... I just see a tightening of the ranks, and not momentum to one side or the other.
  • Well, as I mentioned in the post, partisans would say that their guy won and that doesn't matter. What mattered was undecideds and independents and the snap polls of both overwhelming said that Obama won.

    In poking around the internet, I think one of the key decision makers was WAPOs fact checking blog. It mostly pointed out the lies of McCain and those people I saw who were undecided and independent who looked at that during the debate were turned off by McCain's constantly lying.
  • McCain would start talking and I kept thinking, "that sounds familiar." It wasn't until the last few minutes that I realized: he was trying to sound like Reagan. But he ended up coming across as Crabby Reagan, snapping "you don't understand" how many times? Then Obama would step up and show he *does* understand.

    Obama really needed only to tie this one being an "away" game, and he did at least that. Neither side totally hosed up, both got their points across, but McCain is perceived as having the foreign policy chops and he should have had a clear win. He didn't.

    I hope the other debates run like this, with both sides given enough time to *say* something instead of spew sound bites. Someone said the real winner was Jim Lehrer.
  • david drummond
    This is unrelated to this item but I would like to discuss using one of your images on a book cover. Could you e-mail me please.

    [email protected]
  • McCain looked like a flustered little kid at times. A big point goes to Obama when McCain said he'd cut spending on all but the military. Well then why was McCain for the largest bailout (robbery) in U.S. history? And why did McCain say that the economy was sound just a week earlier? Nope I think McCain lost bigtime on those two points. And after watching the Palin/Biden debate an audience of undecideds on CNN were all planning to vote for Obama.
    This tells me that both Palin and McCain are way out of touch with what's going on in this country. They're stuck with parroting talking points and ignoring the facts.
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