Presidential Debate #1

Debate #1 has finished...and real coverage of it is essentially over, so I will now weigh in.

I think it was a McCain victory 54% to 45% with 1% undecided for the misspeaking that occurred.

The first thing that must be said is that the very first question was demonstrative of what irritates me about this campaign. Neither candidate answered the question... they were called on it, and McCain came slightly closer to answering but still didn't (while Obama didn't even try to actually answer).

It also demonstrated another annoyance that I have about this particular campaign... people cannot deviate from their talking points. I watch all of the news networks to some extent, and when anyone is asked a follow-up question (especially one that challenges their opinion or demonstrates that they just lied), they simply repeat the talking point which was busted. This was a rehashing of old talking points, many of which are busted or overly general. I heard no specifics on plans, especially for the economy. "95% of people will get a tax cut" is not specifics, especially when he's raising the caps on taxes like the capital gains tax (which should by all rights be eliminated altogether).

I think McCain should have talked more about the bailout plan...because he knows what's going on, unlike Obama who has been preparing for a foreign policy debate for 3 days. And, to digress a little from the point at hand, presidential politics was inserted when Bush introduced a bailout plan. John McCain and Barack Obama are both Senators currently, and, although we have been without their services for about two years, we still pay them to be there and represent us, so McCain's decision was the responsible one. Anywho, McCain should have emphasized why the White House meeting fell apart, called for video or audio from it to be released, talked about how the democrats created a fake "agreement" without allowing an entire group to discuss it, pointed out that although Obama paints him as Bush 3.0, he hasn't signed onto Bush's economic plan and all of the democrats have (possibly with the snippy comment about how Obama votes with his part almost 99% of the time) -- so who's with Bush now? I thought that was a hugely missed opportunity.

There really weren't a lot of soundbytes of note on either side. The first one-liner that made an impression was a clever Obama line about the hacksaw vs. the scalpel, but it was easily forgettable. I thought a more effective one was the hit about Obama's presidential seal... very powerful. However, the best one-liner (also from McCain) was the "And when I'm chairman of a subcommittee, we take up the issues..." line. That was brilliant, since it is well-documented that Obama has been a chairman and never actually convened a meeting.

I also gave McCain a point for knowing the name of the soldier whose bracelet he is wearing. Obama is a "man of the people" with "compassion" and blah blah blah, but he didn't bother to know the name of a person who is centered in one of his talking points (someone who is supposed to be central to his anti-war compassion). How is that compassionate, or even keeping the memory alive?

I deleted points on Obama for advocating war with Pakistan. He openly did this and no one is going to call him on it. How can he criticize Iran and then say we should unilaterally attack Pakistan, even against their will? It is pure hypocrisy, but no one is going to say a word, and analysts on both CNN and MSNBC praised him for it (calling it "bold"). So, when Bush extends a war into another country, which has been beligerant toward the precious (sarcasm) UN Resolutions against it, everyone is up-in-arms, but when Obama says "I will attack Pakistan (even) is they are unwilling to help us catch Bin Laden" everything is fine and dandy. Some pacifist democrats... This is like having Al Gore say "Bush (Sr.) should have made extra effort to install a new regime in Iraq because we have documented Saddam's use of Weapons of Mass Destruction and oppressive rule on numerous occasions, and then saying that Bush Jr. "played on our fears" to perform an illegal regime change in Iraq. They talk out of both sides of their mouths and nobody ever seems to notice.

I noticed that all analysts seemed to give points in the beginning to each candidate for respective issues - Obama gets economy points and McCain get foreign policy points. They give an edge before it starts. I thought McCain was even with him on economy, because neither talked about much of anything (especially about the bailout). And I thought McCain won the foreign policy round, driving home the "Obama doesn't understand" point and caling him on a number of things that are just bad about his policy. Obama then rebutted with a mischaracterization of Kissinger's statement about Iran, which of course was corrected thoroughly both during and after the debate.

I think that Obama lost some points for getting frustrated and doing the age old "Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson Talk-Over-Your-Opponent" technique. He kept saying "that's not true" and at one point just started making a point which was garbled with McCain's point into nonsense. And as much as people play up his "eloquence" and "speaking ability" and "thoughtfulness," I didn't see it tonight. You know why? Because there was no teleprompter. He had one good phrase, and it was listed above -- the rest was residual from his semi-memorized speeches (where he had someone else come up with the thoughts and read them off the teleprompter). He needs to remember that regardless of the African American population in these areas, he needs to not be like those two. Sharpton and Jackson were unelectable, and, while drawing comparisons may make you seem slightly more distinguished or intelligent to some, it will also bring up the negatives associated with these very racist hypocrits. Obama needs the white male vote, and being them in Mississippi of all places would not help your cause.

Overall, Obama was not pummeled, like he could/should have been, but like the pundits said afterwards, Mondale beat Reagan by a huge margin in the first debate...but he never became president. So I guess there is no need to pummel him yet. However, one must recognize that Obama has been preparing for 3 days (minus a short trip to DC to screw up a White House meeting); McCain has been preparing for 3 hours, because he was actually working as a Senator during the week.

As for the 1% undecided, there were some names that were mispronounced by McCain, most notably the Iranian president (which I won't endeavor to spell). Obama lost huge points for mispronouncing "nuke"... not nuclear, like Bush, but the shortened form "nuke." That's just unacceptable when you are trying to separate yourself from the man and you make one of the most notably irritations that come from the man (only worse).

There are a lot of other things that I could discuss, but now it is getting late and I may continue tomorrow after re-watching it, but probably not. Overall, I was unimpressed by either candidate's performance, wish they would throw away their talking points, and eagerly await Palin v. Biden (which will either be a wipeout or a slam dunk for Palin... and I'm starting to lean toward wipe-out, depending on the pundit, though I still like her).