The final 2008 presidential debate...
Once again I'll provide a link to the BBC analysis of the debate for your consideration. I echo it's commendation of Bob Schieffer for asking sharp questions and, for the most part, keeping the candidates on task. However, I can't summon the same enthusiasm for the "scrappy" tone of the proceedings.
This is mostly because I don't think any of that really helped clarify where the candidates stand on issues of domestic policy. Perhaps a significant number of people are entertained by political bickering and flaring tempers, but the debates are intended to help voters sort out policy differences between candidates as well as judge their demeanor under pressure. Mr. Schieffer expressed the hope of most American viewers, I think, when he said he wanted to hear something new from the candidates during the discussion. Sadly, we were all disappointed on that score. Looking at the debate from a purely strategic perspective, though, does give us some points worthy of attention.
Obama's strategy seemed to be to hold his own as the "front-runner" going into the debate. To accomplish this he employed many of the same tactics and talking points he'd already been using with just a few change-ups here and there. Just like the first debate he spent a good deal of time on the defensive but very unlike the first debate he showed Biden-like skill in not looking like he was on the defensive. He did a good job of directing attacks back to McCain and, consistent with the other two debates, emerged as the candidate most likely to actually answer the questions put to him. On the whole, aside from showing a touch more rhetorical skill, Obama mostly just "stayed the course". This made the debate look like a 90-minute verbal bout of "King of the Mountain". Which, of course, it was.
But that means the debate was really McCain's to win if only he could show up with a solid strategy. And, in my view, he actually did arrive with something that should have done the trick. The truth is, the whole "Joe the Plumber" shtick did have the potential to play well in American living rooms. It was a good populist device that Obama couldn't adequately defend against (because if Joe's new business was set to make him over $250K per year he would see a higher tax burden with Obama's plan) and which could be used effectively across various domestic policy issues (taxes, the financial crisis, healthcare, and even education). In fact, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if McCain does gain a few points from working families with his message of "I don't want the government to decide what you do with your wealth/health care/child's education, I want to empower YOU to decide."
However, like most of the populist tactics he attempts to use (Sarah Palin, his surprise plan to rescue troubled mortgages) McCain just can't seem to hit his mark. What he really needed was some of the eloquence he kept accusing his opponent of having in abundance. He also needed to lay off the mischaracterizations that have been disproven time and again by independent fact checkers. Well, he needed to lay off any attack that Obama had already successfully rebuffed a dozen times over in previous debates. When you already know your opponent has a perfectly effective response to your attack (especially when that knowledge comes from actually trying the attack already... twice) you ought not waste precious debate time attempting the attack again. All-in-all, McCain mangled what would have been a killer populist move by appearing desperate. While Obama's tone said, "I'm king of the mountain", McCain's said, "Yes you are and I'm furious about that." And to onlookers that basically amounts to both candidates acknowledging that Obama is the winner. What McCain needed to do, of course, was take the spotlight off of Obama entirely, which he easily could have done with the "Joe the Plumber" device. But, once again, he just couldn't deliver.
All of that said, there is one more small thing that might help McCain with some of those working class families. Frequently during the debate Obama responded to something McCain had said with a broad smile and slightly audible chuckle. In the PBS coverage of the debate, the camera rarely failed to capture this. Now, when Biden did the same thing in response to Palin in the vice-presidential debate it actually helped soften his image a bit, but that was because most of the time he was looking amused it was clear that Palin was actually attempting to amuse her listeners. But many times when Obama reacted amused it was obvious that McCain wasn't trying to be funny. Of course, Obama gave this response mostly when McCain brought out one of his worn out mischaracterizations. But to some viewers it might have appeared as though Obama wasn't taking McCain seriously in general. Again, this is a very small thing that might not make any difference to anyone, but with presidential debates you never can tell.
At the end of it it's fairly obvious to me that all of the debates did more for Obama/Biden than they did for McCain/Palin. I think the single most important thing a vast majority of Americans want right now is a new direction for the country. Obama and Biden appear to be offering that new direction while McCain and Palin seem only to promise to resurrect Ronald Reagan. Unless something changes in the next few weeks it's difficult to imagine how the typical swing voter will even perceive a contest. Obama is the only real "candidate for change" between them.
In conclusion, I really feel I need to publicly express my disappointment in the debates being strictly two-party affairs. I know that the committee in charge of these debates has rules that would allow third parties in, and they have let them in on a couple occasions (Anderson and Perot). But perhaps some exceptions or changes in the rules ought to be considered in order to encourage (rather than discourage) participation by other parties. I think it has to be admitted that one reason we heard the same talking points in all three debates without much deviation is because there wasn't at least some third party in there stirring things up. I don't know if the Libertarians or Socialists had anything fresh to offer this time around, but I surely wouldn't have minded hearing from Ralph Nader or the Green Party or any number of other worthy voices that I'll find on the ballot come November. Had at least one other candidate been invited to the debates, I think the American people would have been better served.
delicious
diggOK... there is another possibility...
Lazy
There's been an undercurrent of worry about that for some time. The pro-McCain boards out there are all criticizing the Obama camp for assuming they've already won, but the pro-Obama boards out there have been consistently warning against complacency, as has the Obama campaign itself. It is indeed a concern. Gore and Kerry both suffered from that problem, although it's hard to say whether or not it cost either of them their respective elections.
Another big concern is with the African American communities that feel the effects of racism very strongly. A great many of those people assume that there's no way white America will allow a black man to be president, nor would white America allow a black person's vote to count. There's a large fear that a great many of those people won't vote because they consider doing so to be futile. There's a chance that fear has been well-addressed, judging by the heavy African American turnout in Georgia so far.
Lazy
The pro-McCain boards out there are all criticizing the Obama camp for assuming they've already won
That's it! That's their plan! To criticize Obama's campaign with the intention of trying to make it look like Obama would win in a landslide so people don't bother to vote! :P
re: The final 2008 presidential debate...
My take on Obama was that he was even-keeled, although unprepared at least a couple of times. My take on McCain was that he was angry, angry, angry, angr. He was drowning out there and flailing for anything he could accuse, accuse, accuse, accuse with.
When McCain brought out Joe the Plumber, Obama should have looked at the camera and said, "John McCain wants you to believe that Joe the Plumber is your next door neighbor, a guy just like you. Are you making over $250,000 per year and in a position to buy the company you work for? Joe is certainly important, but Joe is not representative of America. Senator McCain's repeated insistence that Joe is the average American illustrates just how out of touch with mainstream America he really is." The debate would have been won right there, lock, stock and barrel, without any further discussion. Obama dropped a softball on that one. The fact is, I've never been on a first-name basis with anyone making that much money or more, and the ones I had any knowledge of were clearly in the "them" category, not the "us" category, and I'm certain that is more representative of the average person in the U.S. today. Maybe Obama's lifelong transition from "us" to "them" has made him forget a few things.
I'd like to know if Obama actually said "spread the wealth", and what context he said it in. That phrase gets the alarmists in the Republican party all worked up about communism and socialism, and every Democrat knows it. Obama didn't defend it so I assume he said it, but why? Such a blunder is uncharacteristic.
It amazed me how the commentators, both professional and amateur alike, completely forgot that as part of both of Obama's responses to the unleashing of the Hate Talk Express, he started by saying that Americans are more concerned about the issues than the personal attacks. One of the "undecided" voters from NBC's selected panel even chastised both candidates for NOT saying exactly what Obama DID say. I, for one, wanted to hear Obama's personal response to the continual "Ayers-Ayers-Ayers" chant and was satisfied with his response, but found it MUCH to his credit that he didn't breathe a single word about Keating or any of McCain's other shadier dealings. For the astute observer, Obama avoided these non sequiturs (except to answer direct allegations) while McCain was focusing on them, and the difference was remarkable.
To be honest, I don't know how much more substance I expected to hear from this debate. Obama has laid out his plans pretty clearly and I have no more questions for him myself. McCain complained in the last one that pinning down Obama on specifics was like nailing Jell-o to the wall, but I haven't seen any major changes in the Obama campaign for quite some time. The last one of any significance was his shifted stance on offshore drilling. Up until the second debate, I thought the bulk of John McCain's campaign was "Barack Obama is a bad person" with a smattering of "I'm not a liberal". It doesn't seem to have evolved a great deal since then.
I did run the numbers, and if McCain's health plan goes through and we do lose our employer paid healthcare here (which I'd be pissed about since I think I'm the only person in this office, including the owners, that is not voting for McCain or sitting out the election entirely), it will cost us a minimum of $200 more per month for our healthcare premiums along with whatever else we lose because they'll no longer be pre-tax expenditures. Since my wife doesn't work, it's not clear if we'd only get $2,500 instead of the $5,000 (I wish Obama would have kicked him on that one too), which would make our costs that much worse.
The NBC coverage kept a split view so we could see both candidates pretty much the whole time. I thought it was very telling that when McCain got his "ooooooh" moment of the night by telling Obama "I'm not Bush and if you wanted to run against Bush you should have run four years ago", Obama didn't even blink. His non-verbal response clearly said, "I can tell by the tone of your voice that you think what you're saying is somehow deep and biting, but, it isn't." That was his standard response to most of the things McCain said, although there was one brief "Have you lost your damn mind?" expression on one of the more bizarre distortions and a few of the smiles you mentioned. McCain, on the other hand, had several eye-rolls and "Pshaw"s and other dismissive responses that just added to the angry impression he put forth most of the evening.
I'm not sure I would call a winner on this one. Obama supporters came away Obama supporters, McCain supporters came away McCain supporters, and it didn't appear to have a major effect on the undecided.
I get what you're saying about the third party candidates, but this country is far too polarized for it to be of any major value. The fireworks might have been prettier, but I see no reason to believe that the scorch marks on the ground afterwards would have been discernably different.
Point well made...
... and well taken. But for me, the question put to both of them by two different moderators as to what specific economic campaign promises they may need to suspend in light of the present financial crisis was never adequately answered by either of them. There were a number of issues that either of them could have been more specific about, like the future of Social Security. There were other somewhat glossed-over issues and a few issues that were never brought up at all. (OK, on that last point I'm thinking about immigration, but I could be wrong... I don't even recall it being mentioned in passing... was it? I'm also thinking of election and media reform... I'm fairly certain those weren't brought up.)
In any case... there was plenty of new ground to cover if anyone was interested and I do think certain alternative party candidates would have brought some of those issues up.Other Ground
No position on immigration, election/media reform, and probably not even Social Security would have made any decisive difference. They would, however, have taken time away from the economy and other issues of that importance level. Consequently, I see nothing but entertainment value from bringing them up. Maybe that's what this debate needed, I don't know. Everyone still considers Social Security a looming but future problem, and it's tough to tell who stands where on immigration within the electorate or the elected.
Something I just now did the math on... I see the difference between the Obama and McCain calculation of healthcare. We were on private insurance a couple of years ago. To add maternity coverage would have doubled our premium. Adjusting for inflation, without maternity coverage we would have paid the ~$6,000 McCain is claiming, with maternity coverage we would have the ~$12,000 Obama is claiming (although the side effects of that policy were NASTY compared to a good employer program). It seems to me that, once again, a Republican is yammering "PRO-LIFE" to appease the base while supporting laws and social positions that are not in the best interests of parents or children. I have officially crossed over from believing that John McCain is simply not enough to be PotUS into the camp that despises John McCain.
OK, but...
... by the third debate all of those other issues had already been hashed out. Or at least it appears that way since in the third debate neither of the candidates said anything new about them. So why not take time in the third debate to talk about these other domestic issues? Maybe for some un-decided out there they are still relevant. I'm certain the immigration issue is still very important to many people right now, tied as it is to our economy and national security.
Perhaps it's just a point of personal preference. I'm not a Republican or a Democrat and I'd just like to hear from someone else. Which, you know... I do... online 'n stuff... but in a debate would be nice.
re: OK, but...
"So why not take time in the third debate to talk about these other domestic issues?" - To what end? I'm not saying they aren't relevant, even to the polarized voters that have already decided. I'm saying that I don't see any of them being critical enough to decide one way or the other. This discussion reminds me of a debate I once had over gun control where I took the anti-gun control stance: I see exactly one problem with gun control, and that is that it has been demonstrated not to work, and I successfully based my entire argument on that. By exactly the same token, even if this final debate was primarily a rehash of everything we've heard before, I don't think introducing new information that did not pertain directly to the economy, healthcare, or education would have had any major effect beyond irritating a country that wants little more than continual reaffirmation that those things will be handled starting January 2009.
For the record, I'm happy to have (I)ndependent status on my voter registration card. I'm not at all opposed to having these third party people along for the ride, but unless and until this country can pull itself from the extremes, most of those guys don't stand a chance regardless of how much media time they get and how many secondary issues are hashed out. Most of the country self-identifies as Republican or Democrat, and as long as that's true, most of the country will vote Republican or Democrat. At this time, the third parties serve little purpose beyond draining votes from the two main parties. Personally, I would prefer a disbanding of all parties and make each candidate at all levels sink or swim on his own merits and ideals. That's just wishful thinking though.
Heh...
... but wishful thinking put into wishful action can often lead to wish fulfillment, no? 
Each of the first million or so times a woman stood up in the US to advocate her right to vote seemed utterly ineffectual. But every single one of those million times was important to arriving at the last time it needed to be done.
Today, having certain topics brought up or having a third party in the debate might not make a difference in terms of who occupies the White House. It might not make a difference in who becomes the next president either or the next one after that. But soon people would get used to the idea that there are more than just two perspectives and the world is more complicated than just two or three issues.
And after that happens... who knows?
It all has to begin somewhere.
D'oh
A critical difference between doing away with the two-party system and women's suffrage is that opposition to the two-party system has been with us since the start, and no more than a handful of people have ever advocated for it. That minority voice has never grown in any meaningful way.
I think you make the same mistake Obama does in assuming that the American people have some desire for independent thought. People want to be told what to think and do, they don't want to have to think for themselves. This is also why democracy isn't taking a foothold elsewhere.
It's not just politics. Everywhere you look, you see people establishing and following methodologies and frameworks for themselves and others to follow. You'd be hard pressed to find a topic that this sort of thinking isn't extant in. While it's certainly nice to dream about a truly independent candidate, having a well thought out nearly-universal guideline for behavior to compare with the plank of any party that you came up with all on your own would be very difficult. Imagine if each and every candidate had that. You'd need four years to research all the positions and how well a person has adhered to it during their career. Eventually people would rely on someone else to do all that work for them, and we'd wind up right back where we are now. All it would accomplish would be to discard a few labels, but even that would do more to muddy the waters than anything else.
Killing the two-party system may be desirable, but its feasibility is low.
Well...
... I'm not necessarily looking for the destruction of the two-party system as a whole, although that does happen to be desirable in my view. I'm just looking for some frank acknowledgement that at any given time the two parties alone don't have all the answers. And one of the best ways for this acknowledgement to come is for them to include someone with different answers in these debates.
Please forgive me for being a sucker for so-called "lost causes".
Just remember...
... it's not the merits of your position I find any fault in.
Besides, I think it takes a sucker for lost causes to participate at all in American politics.
More parties in the debates
Just adding my 2 cents down here so I don't interrupt to flow of conversation--but I what I think having Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader and/or Bob Barr would have added to the debate would not be new topics (immigration) so much as questioning status quo responses that the two candidates have--especially when they're similar--for instance, questioning whether nuclear energy is really a safe and affordable energy alternative--or ethanol as a biofuel, especially given the world food crisis.
Overall, I pretty much agree with what everyone's said here in characterizing the last debate. I did think McCain had a stronger showing in the beginning--he scored points on the economy which I think might have helped with some independents. I think where things started going downhill for him was when the question of negative campaigning came up--the fact that he was the one voicing the outrage (over John Lewis) and displaying emotion, when Obama was speaking calmly about the fact that people at McCain rallies have made violent threats--that contrast did McCain no good. His raising of the Ayers controversy there looked oddly forced too, At that point I thought--he's motivating his base, but he's losing indpendents.
I heard an email response read on the radio to the "Joe the Plumber" McCain strategy that's similar to what ESi said above. A woman in NH wrote to say that she's sure Joe is a very hard-working guy, but that her husband is also a hard-working guy who, unlike Joe, is losing his job. Their family is losing health insurance, and don't know whether they will be able to pay the mortgage. So if the worst that happens to Joe is that he has to wait a year to buy a bigger business, he's blessed. And that if John McCain thinks that Joe represents the average working-class American, then that shows how out of touch he is.
I also thought Obama's smiling was probably turning people off (I know I didn't like it).
Right, Jaz...
... I failed to be more explicit in pointing out that other parties actually have other very valid perspectives on the issues that were covered.
And regarding "Joe the Plumber"... the negative responses some working people are having is an indicator of how poorly McCain used that rhetorical device. I'm fairly certain Joe doesn't make anything close to $250K per year now and I'm fairly doubtful that the business he wants to buy makes that (and here Obama really needed to point out that Joe only needs to worry about that "higher tax bracket" if the business he's buying is more successful than 98% of the small businesses out there, while instead Obama made it appear as though it was a given that Joe's business would make that much... perhaps Joe told him it would, I don't know, but I doubt it). What McCain needed to do was keep Obama on the defensive about the issue, forcing him to perhaps give a number of statistics (like the "98%" one) that folks typically ignore or don't trust and then portray Joe as a guy whose wages now are only as much as what the average working class person makes (which is probably true) but Obama's plans will prevent him from ever realizing "American Dream" of owning his own business. This would not have been impossible to pull off in principle. But instead McCain allowed Obama to make Joe look like a somewhat wealthy guy who was bellyaching about paying taxes on a quarter-million-dollar income. (Yes, that's right, I'm saying that the error Obama made in the way he responded to McCain actually worked for Obama in the end on account of McCain's ineptitude.) All the same, I still wouldn't be surprised if some working-class folks out there got the message McCain was trying to send and are now, therefore, leaning his way.
My 2¢ on the Oct 15th Debate
I always like to go out there and read both perspectives.
Though this was McCain's strongest debate - it seems most people still feel that Obama "won". Some McCain supporters mentioned they wondered why this McCain didn't show up sooner - and almost had the attitude "a little to little, a little too late".
Conservative Supporters say this was McCain's best debate
He was able to pokes some holes in Obama’s armor. He nicked him with Ayers, ACORN, public financing, negative advertising, abortion and yes, Joe the Plumber.
...
Anytime the economy is front and center (like the first two debates) Obama is a happy camper. But in this debate, the economy really took a back seat which put Obama in a zone that he’d rather not be in.
Liberals call this the -
The "Joe the Plumber Debate"
(I would quote something here, but the article not as succinct in its points... it kind of rants.)
Fact check wire has links to the Joe the Plumber video
The Washington Post links to a vid of Joe Plumber's response to the debate.
I have to admit I'm curious about the guy.
About the debate overall...
I loved last night's commentator! He was punchy and asked the questions that a lot of people wanted addressed. hat being said, I also agree that neither candidate really tackled those questions head on or in a novel way.
I also think that the Joe the Plumber reference - tacky as I thought it was - helped McCain get back on track in connecting on a personal level with the American public to some extent. However I think Sarah Palin would have delivered this line of attack better than McCain managed to do in the debate. He comes off as cantakerous and mean - and not many people want to deal with that when getting up close and personal. At the risk of sounding sexist - as a woman I was surprised that this was even mentioned as an issue by the PBS male commentators. That just didn't seem to fit the status quo for me and I found it very interesting. This coupled with the gender stats that Obama has better ratings with the female voter than McCain - really kind of convices me that the US feels like it's in a crisis - as that tends to be a time when people pull together in that kind of "touchy feely" way.
The distribution of wealth issue that often divides Democrats and Republicans finally reared its head, making the standard taglines pack more punch to McCain's sound bytes. However, I also agree and even more strongly suggest that given the financial crisis - the average voter already feels like class warfare is going on - and they are on the losing side.
I suppose I disagree with the conservative's notion that Obama was nicked by the guilt by association attacks other than it probably scored points with the McCain base that already thought those things. I thought Obama had an adequate answer. From my point of view it just looks like another flavor of McCain's find *something* to attack - throw it out there and see if it sticks. It seems desperate. I like your "King of the Hill" analogy there - I think it fits.
Well, I hate to say I told you so, but...