On the second Obama-McCain debate...
What can I say? I just think those BBC folks know what they're talking about. In particular, this quote: "[McCain] duly headed off around the ring on the offensive more than once, but he tended to telegraph his punches and they mostly felt like they missed their target." The only problem I have, really, with the BBC's assessment is that they called the debate in favor of Obama only because he's leading in the polls. In my view, he was the clear winner regardless.
But I feel as though I need to qualify that judgment just a bit, because, frankly, this second debate didn't seem like a debate at all. I mean, sure, in both of the previous debates the McCain camp in particular seemed to want to turn the proceedings into 90-minute campaign ad. But those previous debates at least pretended to be debates. Not so with what we saw last night. All-in-all, I thought it was a perfectly ineffective debate format.
And for a format touted as McCain's favorite, he did a stunningly lousy job. I'll give him points for being the first of the candidates to make a specific suggestion in regard to helping individual home owners in the present financial crisis. Given McCain's supply-side policies and Obama's mantras of "help the middle class", Obama should have been the first between them to offer a detailed plan to help the little guy. But this surprise suggestion from McCain during the meeting was a little like his selection of Gov. Palin as a running mate: McCain can't seem to weave a strong, populist tactic into winning campaign strategy. Perhaps populist tactics are only going to work for actual populists.So McCain spent the evening mostly pacing awkwardly about the stage taking lame jabs at Obama rather than actually answering questions. Obama, by contrast, only failed to answer a few questions, and that was mostly due to his getting caught up in defending himself against McCain's mischaracterizations. (Recall this was also Obama's mistake in the first debate, but it did seem to me that he learned some lessons from Biden who, in his debate with McCain's running mate, did a brilliant job of avoiding being put on the ropes.) And, for me, this point is what really decides the debate in Obama's favor. Between the two candidates, only Obama appeared to be actually listening to the questions that actual Americans were asking.
Now, I know there is one more presidential debate to go, but I really have to question here how McCain can possibly pull off a win against Obama in November. I've doubted McCain's chances ever since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, but the past failures of Gore and Kerry have made nearly every Obama supporter I talk to nervous about thinking Obama is a slam dunk. After all, many of them expected Gore and Kerry to easily defeat Bush and look how those elections turned out.
But Obama is a completely different candidate than Gore or Kerry. To begin with, there were plenty of people out there (myself included) who thought that neither Gore nor Kerry were the most electable choices the Democrats had at the time. And the truth is that in this election cycle Obama secured his nomination very much in spite of the party machine. If Obama hadn't staged his own phenomenal grass-roots campaign, the Democrats would surely have failed once again to nominate the most electable candidate. But that means that Obama's ascension to the nomination was brought about not by typical Democrats, but by progressive Democrats and independents and maybe a few liberal Republicans. And now that Obama does have the nomination, he'll be supported by the same typical Democrats that made the 2000 and 2004 races close, but, in contrast, he'll also have all of those other folks who just couldn't get excited about Gore or Kerry. All of that seems to add up to a landslide victory for Obama in November.And that's all before we even notice how much the political climate favors Obama. Right now a significant number of Americans do really want a change in the country's direction. The war and the economy are frequently held up as the reasons people want change, but I don't think these generalities really explain the appeal of Obama (or McCain's lack of appeal) specifically. In my observation, while the majority of people are disappointed in how the war in Iraq has been conducted, they don't seem to have more confidence in one party over the other to fix the problem. Furthermore, while a vast majority of people are disgusted by the home mortgage crisis, Americans generally judge lightly those individuals who reap huge rewards during investment bubbles. What's angering Americans today isn't the mortgage bubble per se (after all, all American homeowners benefitted from it in one way or another over the past two decades), but, rather, the manner in which it's impacting the rest of the economy, in particular wages and retirement investments. And perhaps none of those things would bother folks too much today if wages and health insurance premiums and 401K matches hadn't been fairly unimpressive for some time now. In other words, Americans don't mind people getting rich, even if they bend the rules a bit to do so, but when they see their employers get richer and richer while they get smaller raises, pay more in insurance, and have less and less to save... well, let's just say that in the past four years certain lines have been crossed.
So Obama's message of taxing the rich and giving a break to the middle class really resonates with people now more than it ever did (and perhaps ever could) before. And it particularly contrasts with McCain's generation-old trickle-down ideas. McCain's economic message just can't compete.
Some say Obama is at a disadvantage because of race, and it sickens me to agree that this argument has merit. In fact, I'll go on record to assert that if Obama loses or doesn't win by a landslide, racism was the reason. But here I want to point out that ageism is also a force to be reckoned with in the US. No, it doesn't have the insidious hold on American culture that racism does, but it shouldn't be easily discounted. McCain is a man of advanced age who is not helped by the fact that he also happens to espouse outmoded ideas. If he had something radical to say, his age might not be so easily noticed. Ron Paul, for instance, is a year older than McCain, but I have a feeling if he'd been the Republican nominee age wouldn't be an issue.
I don't currently endorse Obama or McCain, but all of the above make it fairly obvious to me that Obama's going to ride into the White House on a mandate. Whether he'll be able to deliver the progressive agenda he promises is a question for another time.
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diggDebate #2
Is McCain's hero Reagan or Roosevelt? He waffled on that in two back-to-back statements.
Showing hero-worship for Reagan is going to be damaging at this time. Reagan's trickle-down economics have not worked at all. It's not a flaw in the system, it's relying on people to actually live up to the ideal he set. AIG's take-the-money-and-party debacle is the perfect indicator of what's wrong with trickle-down.
When he came out and did that weird hands-held-straight-out-flat-wave-up-and-down-weakly thing, I thought of the guys at a nearby nursing home reaching out for their walkers. McCain really DOES look old now. Most people look like that when exiting the Presidency, not starting it. Maybe he really would die in office.
Obama kept making me think he wasn't even going to address the questions posed to him, but then he always came around and at least touched on them. I think McCain did a better job of taking the questions directly. His style would have benefitted more by tackling the question promptly, then tangentializing, as McCain did. Obama did seem to move toward that style as the debate progressed, but for the first few questions I really had McCain in the "win" column.
Obama's "wtf-ever" reactions to McCain's more blatant lies were perfect. Too bad he didn't pick up the microphone and give a good belly laugh into it each time, or at least a big juicy eye-roll. I suppose that wouldn't have helped him much though.
Overall I think Obama did a better job than McCain of adding substance to rhetoric. At the same time, I think this was the clearest idea I've ever gotten as to what McCain's positions really are. While I definitely give the snapshot victory to Obama on this score, McCain is the clear winner in the most improved category.
Obama could strengthen his position by pointing out that the tax increases he's talking about are only dramatic when seen collectively. For the individuals who will get those increases, it's not going to be that huge. A major boost would be if he would illustrate his planned alteration to the cap on Social Security taxes. He should be clear that he's not adjusting the rate, he's just moving the payroll cap upward. I bet most people in the U.S. aren't aware that a cap exists since most of us have never made anywhere near enough to even approach it. Most people probably also don't know that Social Security tax is a payroll tax only, not something that is applied to any investment returns. Many truly wealthy people rely on that sort of income more than payroll income, so it's not like they're looking at an across-the-board increase. Conversely, I think he has done a good job of driving home that 95% of us will not see an increase. I think the McCain-Palin stance of repeating that he will raise taxes is really starting to fall on deaf ears.
I question how much the debate changed anything. No matter who won, neither side said anything that would speak to the heart of the opposition's electorate, nor did they really bring in anything new that would really kick someone who was undecided. Now it remains to be seen what effect the negative turn will have and, probably to a lesser degree, how the final debate goes.
Heh...
... yeah, I did notice that also, that sometimes it looked like Obama wasn't going to answer the question and then he did. I can see what you mean by pointing out that McCain took more questions directly, but it seemed to me he did so mostly with the aim of quickly brushing them off so he could get to his "talking points". I'll grant this can be an effective debate strategy, but he didn't pull it off very well, in my opinion.
McCain and Palin both frequently invoke Reagan, by name and by policy choice, and I agree with you that this will ultimately hurt them. I don't know how they think people will consider them agents of change when they constantly put forth policies of the past... and failed ones at that.
I also agree that the debate didn't give us anything new and it won't likely change anything. Which is mostly bad news for McCain.
By the way... was it just me, or was Obama's description of the development of "computers" in the government sector really a description of how the Internet came to be?
McGaffe
I listened to some commentary tonight and they brought up some things I'd forgotten and some I'd missed entirely.
When talking to one of the questioners, McCain said, "I bet you might never have of them before this crisis" in reference to Fannie and Freddie. If it had been me sitting in that chair, I might very well have said "And what makes you think that?" Even if I didn't say it, I sure would have thought it. I found it condescending, especially from a member of the white establishment and the party most associated with racism speaking to a person of color. I didn't think a lot of it at first (since just as much as anybody, I have the blinders of being in the privileged class on), but that solitary statement might have cost him the votes of a lot of educated black voters. I find it as sort of a "life imitates art" moment as a comparison to the Geico/caveman commercials.
McCain also incorrectly presented his own health care plan. He said he intended to give each worker a $5,000 tax credit. This is not true. An individual will get $2,500, so a married couple will get the $5,000. Of course I only know about the middle-class family I'm trying to run, and in this one, that is a very large difference. It's a whole lot more damaging than the "57 states" stumble that my mom just tried to pass off as proof that Obama is Muslim (I've been fighting that fight all day back and forth in e-mail, wow is that idea entrenched).
ETA: McCain refused on the Senate floor and again at the end of this debate to shake Obama's hand. Many polls are showing that this condescending attitude is turning people off. The office of Senator holds at least one thing in common with police officers, soldiers, etc.: it's an unwritten rule in this society that you show the respect due to a position even if you can't respect a specific person filling it.
ETA: Obama's blurb about computer development and the government was too short on specifics to be certain exactly what he was getting at. It is absolutely true that a great many technological advances were made as part of DoD research and were later declassified and released to the public. Given that he used the word "communication", he was probably referring to DARPAnet, which was initially envisioned as a way for remote military installations to communicate rapidly, was then was opened to educational institutions, and then (due largely to a bill sponsored and pushed by Al Gore), became what we now know as the Internet.
hand shake
due respect
Smear Campaign
Dangerous Rhetoric
The paper today reported that in a McCain rally yesterday, the candidate tried to tone down the angry rhetoric which has centered around Barak Obama's ties to Bill Ayers. In response to a supporter saying that he was " 'scared . . . to bring a child up' under an Obama presidency," McCain replied that "I have to tell you he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States." I suppose I shouldn't be shocked at this (it's amazing that my "shock" sensors haven't overloaded by this time)--but, really, the kind of fear tactics that have been used over and over again around terrorism are reaping some incredibly destructive results in this county.
And this exchange is even more telling--Another supporter referred to Obama as an "Arab" and McCain interrupted her with this correction: ""No, ma'am...He is a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements."
"Arab" or "Muslim" has become an interchangeable term with "terrorist"--People who are Arabs cannot have families (for that matter terrorists don't have families either) because they're inhuman, monstrous. And what follows from this? How can there be any other response but a violent one?
"Supporters jeer as McCain calls Obama a decent person"
And here's a report from the Washington Post on the Palin rally in which the Ayers accusations began in earnest. It's unsurprising I think that Palin's description of Obama, that he is "someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists," would lead to calls from the crowd accusing him of treason, terrorism, and suggesting that he should be killed.
Letters to the Editor on the equating of "Arab" with "terrorist"
Several letters to the editor responded well to the exchange above in which"Arab" is used as accusation and is contrasted with "decent family man" and generally to the danger of this kind of rhetoric:
Words of civility mask bigotry
And this letter by a former headmaster of Brookline High School about his own association with Bill Ayers I found put a more realistic face on what Obama's association means:
Andy Martin on the Sean Hannity Show
Not Impressed?
If you are like me and have been less than enthused by either of these two candidates, go to votesmart.org and check out the other cadidates. There's still time to drum up support for someone else. Could you imagine the stir? The only throw away vote is the one not cast.
#3 Son
Once again, bro...
Ditto
I agree with everything you said. I also liked McCain's suggestion about mortgages, but it seemed like something he had added in as a political move rather than something he feels strongly about. My big impression of McCain was that he seemed very tired--the campaign seems to have aged him, and I'm not sure if deep down he really wants the office anymore. He also looked very awkward moving around the stage, so I too didn't understand the description of the townhall format being his forte.
I do think Obama is a different Democratic nominee for the reasons you cited. Unlike either Gore or Kerry, he connects to people in audiences. He also had picked up some counterpunching from Biden ("I don't understand" and the "Bomb bomb bomb Iran" were the ones I noticed.)
On race, CNN reported on what impact it might have according to polling data early in September--story here.
Children give advice to the next president
Wasn't quite sure where to post this--thought this would be as good a place as any. There's a new civics book for kids called See How They Run in which the author, Jane Goodman, prints advice kids have for the next President. And article in the Globe today printed some ofwhat the kids said:
from a 6th grader in Roxbury, MA: "dont just go to a country and try and beat them up because its not fair and your only doing it because you can and its not fair to be a bully to the less fortunate."
from a 5th grader in Rhinebeck, NY: "Don't doubt the power of our pollution to the earth because one day it will all add up and it won't be funny."
from a 4th grader in Boston, MA: ""I hop that you can help are erath and try to stop the badness becuse there has been a lot of killing neer my house and that makes me feel fritend."
Listen up grown-ups