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Loading ...First presidential debate produces contrasts
09.26.2008 11:23pm EDT
(Washington) Liberal and Democrat vs. conservative and Republican. Taller, younger and black vs. shorter, older and white. It was a night of contrasts as Barack Obama and John McCain shared a stage in their first of three presidential debates.
The only similarities: a lack of specifics, campaign-trail sound bites and an inability to answer a question directly.Appearances were striking from the time the two walked onto the stage at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
Obama, age 47, 6-foot-1 and black, glided; McCain, age 72, 5-foot-9 and white moved briskly. The rivals quickly shook hands and took their positions behind a pair of podiums.
As the debate opened, moderator Jim Lehrer prodded the two to directly engage with each other and encouraged skirmishing. This was, after all, the first time each was able to answer the other’s months of criticisms directly.
It took a few questions, but then the charges and counter charges came easily to both. The back-and-forth gained intensity throughout the 90-minute debate, though civility was never lost.
Both landed their punches and stuck to their playbooks.
McCain repeatedly found new ways to label his rival a liberal, while Obama kept calling McCain an extension of George W. Bush.
At one point, the Republican accused Obama of compiling “the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate.” Obama shot back: “Mostly that’s just me opposing George Bush’s wrong-headed policies.”
Both were playing their own games; neither was outside of their comfort zones. Each talked in sound bites and repeated phrases he makes repeatedly on the campaign trail. It was, however, the first time many of the tens of millions of TV viewers had heard the lines.
Twice, the candidates were prodded to ask whether they would support the financial bailout being debated in Washington and whether it would cause them to revamp their proposals.
This debate, primarily focused on foreign policy, was supposed to be McCain’s sweet spot; Obama held his own.
“You were wrong” on Iraq, Obama repeated three times in succession as he pointedly looked his opponent in the eye. “John, you like to pretend the war began in 2007.”
McCain replied that Obama has refused to acknowledge the success of the troop buildup in Iraq, backed by Bush and McCain himself. “Senator Obama after promising not to vote to cut off funding to the troops did an incredible thing” and voted against the funding, McCain said.
At times, both struggled to keep their composure, and their dislike for one another showed through.
When Obama assailed McCain’s tax proposals and accused him of wanting to give another $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies, McCain smiled tightly, chuckled and said: “With all due respect, you already gave them to the oil companies.”
And, as McCain criticized Obama’s position on last year’s troop increase strategy in Iraq, Obama smirked, pursed his lips and muttered repeatedly: “That’s not true.”
McCain poked fun at his age; he’d be the oldest first term elected president. He said the financial crisis was the greatest in “our time” – and added: “I’ve been around a little while.” At another point, after Obama repeated a comment: “Were you afraid I couldn’t hear you?”
He also frequently provided a history lesson, talking of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower before the D-Day invasion, President Reagan’s decision in the 1980s to keep troops in Lebanon, Richard M. Nixon’s outreach to China in the 1970s, and his own Vietnam service.
The moderator was a failure at what he was supposed to be doing: moderating and ensuring equal time.
Just once I want to see the moderator cut off the candidate’s mike.
We need to hear every thing these guys have to say, however odeous we find the other side of each of our points of view to be.
The power went out in this heavy rain storm in the Maryland-DC area, putting an end to my hearing of the debate on my TV.
Early opinion polls of undecided voters has Obama winning the debate by 12-16 points overall. Excellent job.
I think that the first McCain/Obama Presidential debate was generally a wash. But if I was forced to call a winner, I’d have to give it to McCain by a very slight edge. There were higher expectations for Obama and lower expectation for McCain. I fully expected McCain to fold when the debate started off on the Wall Street debacle — but, he quickly rebounded on foreign policy.
So many people in the Obama camp might be disappointed though. Quite a few thought that McCain would have a “melt down”. It didn’t happen. Personally, I believe Obama looked more flustered. His looking down at his crib notes much too often made him appear a bit less prepared.
I’d give a few points to McCain for keeping his cool, and I’d subtract a few points from Obama for not being more emphatic in his response to the “surge” question and by his limp response to McCain‘s accusation that Obama lacked foreign policy experience.
I came away from the debate feeling that McCain would be less dangerous to the nation than the current POTUS IMBECILUS. Contrary wise, I was less impressed with Obama and his fast backtracking on nuclear energy and off-shore oil drilling. Predictably, Democrats lack the ability to completely committed to anything. Or anyone, in our case.
The next debate on Domestic Policies will be determinate. I’m sure McCain will be a complete Neanderthal on GBLT issues like ENDA, while toeing the fascist party line on DOMA and DADT. Whereas, I suspect Obama will give his usual canned, ambiguous, semi-committal, week-kneed response to any question involving the GLBT community — and then pray the moderator will move on quickly past the topic.
Just like Obama will, no doubt, encourage the Congress to shelve all “controversial” legislation concerning us that would force him to take a principled stand on our behalf — that is, if he makes it to the oval office. If you don’t believe me then just look at the anti-Gay “religious” leaders and former Reagan/Bush supporters he has put on his campaign. Oddly, not a high profile Gay or Lesbian pro-rights activist is anywhere in sight at the Obama camp. It makes you wonder what exactly has he promised these White “social conservatives” and Black Baptist homophobes on his so-called “Faith“ tours?
Submissive disparagement, not active optimism, seems to be the rule amongst too many GLBT Obama supporters today. I get really vexed when I see my GLBT friends’ trust taken for granted and then their hearts broken, time after time, by sociopathic, manipulative, self-serving politicians. Even one of our next door neighbors, who is a loyal Obama supporter, does not for a moment believe that Obama will lead in the least bit on our issues. He is resigned to that because he fears the alternative so much.
Yet, McCain and Obama both believe that we should not be married to our life-partners. The team of McCain and Obama both proudly proclaim that they will each defend and uphold heterosexual privilege over us. So, why bother? Do we trust Obama’s shallow, non-commitment to our “half equal” rights over McCain’s up-front opposition to us. These are our choices?
My gay neighbor’s spouse (yes, they were recently married in California this September) agrees with me. When he was accused of being “selfish” by his straight Democratic friends (because my friend did not defer his human rights to other “issues” facing the country) my, recently married, gay neighbor proposed the following tee-shirt slogan for the edification of all so-called “Liberal“, straight Obama supporters:
“Call Me Selfish Only If You Are Willing to Give Up Your Right to Marry the One You Love”
I guess it would have to be printed in small letters or on a really big tee shirt, but the message is powerful enough to make each of us question, in our own hearts, why must we have to choose from any of the above?
If there are no consequences for betraying us, then why should any politician ever take us seriously. If we cannot understand the political principle of “Quid Pro Quo”, and demand its application, then we have already betrayed the future of our own kind. Sometimes you have to lose a battle in order to win the war. If that’s what is required for people to take us seriously, then we had better stop raising people up who are keeping us down. We don’t owe anybody our votes — they work for us. Make them earn it.
I have reluctantly assumed the mantle of the Devil’s Advocate. In reality, I am a Registered Democrat. But, ultimately, the choice is yours. I grow weary of having to do the “I told you so” dance. I’d be more than glad to pass my dance-card on to somebody else. But, just in case, I’m going to dust off my best club-shoes — that is, if Obama wins and follows the Democratic Party’s predictable patterns of political expediency, at our expense. I hope I’m wrong. For all our sake.
~ Bud Evans
I was completely underwhelmed by the debate. It was an even more clear example that these should not be the only two people that are up for election.
McCain kept falling back on issues of the surge. He stumbled and seemed pinned at many points. I don’t think that Obama was able to say anything other than, “I agree with John.”
Lord…
What a choice that has been presented.
Obama missed a golden opportunity to point to the Keating 5 scandal that McCain was involved with. Charles Keating has been financially backing McCain for years. Obama should have specified McCain’s continued support for deregulation, no fewer than four times and on record. The only change McCain will bring about is “short” change on main street.
I admit I only saw the second half of the debate, but I think it was a slight Obama victory. From what I saw, both candidates were fairly equal on substance. McCain did not have as much of an advantage as all of his experience would suggest. Really, I think his experience allowed him to just list examples of what he has done, rather than say what he would do. While Obama’s plans were vague, he at least put them out there more than McCain.
But his repeated mischaracterizations and disrespectfulness really lost McCain the debate for me. Rather than countering Obama by saying “I disagree”, he would say, “Obama just doesn’t understand,” “Obama doesn’t get it,” or “Obama is naive”. I felt it was disrespectful not to treat his oppenent as a legitimate candidate and to characterize every view but his own as mistaken. Especially since he’s mistaken about some things. LGBT issues and his Eisenhower story, for example.
Beyond that, he kept mischaracterizing Obama’s positions. Obama said multiple times that when he talks about negotiating with a place like Iran without preconditions, he doesn’t mean the president himself will go there, but McCain just kept saying that that’s what Obama meant. There were several other instances when he did this. There are plenty of things he could critisize about Obama; why does he have to resort to lying and discredited lines of attack? McCain’s attitude left a bad taste in my mouth.
And then of course, there were the points I disagreed with. Talking to I ran will “legitimize” them! Like Iran is looking for legitimacy from the U.S.!
As for Obama, though he held his own and stayed cool (for the most part; when he was being blatantly lied about he tended to get frustrated), he didn’t win the debate. McCain lost it. He needs to do better next time.
I also found the debate a tie when talking about what the candidates actually had to say. However, (and I feel this is huge), I felt that when talking about body language, Obama was by far the winner. It was widely noticed that even though they were encouraged to talk with each other, McCain only once, for the briefest of seconds, glanced at Obama. On the other hand, Obama continually looked at, and talked directly to McCain.
There is a good discussion of what this could possibly mean at the following website: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/220226.php
“Campaign in poetry, govern in prose” or not, we need HARD, SPECIFIC answers to HARD, SPECIFIC questions, and we didn’t get them: on the Wall Street bailout, ending the war, healthcare, education, infrastructure, CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM (hello!)… this electoral cycle is costing over a BILLION dollars … one shouldn’t have to be a millionaire to run for public office. That is the case now, and look where it got us: the BuschReich in all its Berlin-between-the-wars odious excess. At least SOME of those things are on Obama’s shopping list. If I had $5000 to spend on healthcare, I wouldn’t NEED McCain’s tax credit, but I DON’T. They really should have talked about the Rethugnantclones’ proposal to turn Social Security over to “the free market” (i.e. Wall Street) … wouldn’t THAT have been a lovely mess?! Yes, I’m concerned about the Democrats’ lack of vocal commitment to GLBT rights, but they’re in the same position politicians were c. 1950 … anybody for integration couldn’t get elected; it was the kiss of death, yes, with the “religulous” voters (to borrow Bill Mahr’s excellent term)to support equal rights for African-Americans and other minorities. Do you REALLY think it’s PRUDENT for someone running for President in the present repressive, hostile, and downright VIOLENT climate regarding GLBT people and (Hispanic) immigrants to stand up and say, “I’m for GLBT marriage and adoption and repeal of DOMA and DADT and general amnesty for working illegal immigrants?” McCain is a warmonger, the golden boy of the military-industrial complex. I don’t want his finger on the button. Nuclear war with Iran COULD trigger a disastrous global ecological apocalypse.I’m more concerned about THAT, never mind the one that’s already rolling down the tracks at full speed and is threatening to overwhelm us if we don’t act IMMEDIATELY to cut dependence on fossil fuels and reduce toxic emissions of ALL kinds. McCain could care less about all THOSE things.
Cheers,
Bud Clark
San Diego CA USA
For the most part, I thought Obama turned in the stronger debate performance. His answers were intelligent, well-informed, and logical. He replied immediately to each question, often a moment or two before Lehrer finished. Obama was honest. Each of his answers seemed accurate and free of exaggeration. He rarely became flustered. He repeatedly found points of agreement with McCain. He was confident and forceful without being belligerent. On the other hand, he tended to stammer a bit, and he didn’t really answer Lehrer’s question about how the bailout might affect his plans for the nation. I felt he missed an opportunity to describe his achievements as a Senator, which have exceeded McCain’s despite the latter’s longer tenure. He may do that in a future debate, however. Overall, Obama conveyed the temperament, capability, and judgment to be president.
By comparison, McCain seemed less informed than Obama, causing his frequent claims that Obama “doesn’t understand” to fall flat. He seemed rigid, defensive, and sometimes impulsive. Asked how the bailout might affect his plans, he blurted an answer to the effect that he was willing to freeze all spending except for the military, homeland security, and the Department of Defense. This seems downright irrational, given the need to respond to several domestic crises. Moreover, he often attacked Obama without providing evidence to back up his allegations. Finally, McCain did little to distinguish himself from Bush. On the other hand, McCain rarely became noticeably disoriented or fell into a long, confused silence as he has in several interviews and speeches.
Ultimately, I felt Obama bested McCain in this debate on foreign policy, an area that is supposed to be McCain’s main strength. For me, the debate itself makes little difference: I support Obama because of his sweeping support for LGBT rights and his plans to rescue the country from years of sharp decline on virtually every front. Obama’s effectiveness in the debate, however, bodes well for his presidential prospects, and I find that very encouraging.
I grew tired of McCain saying “Obama just doesn’t understand.” I thought it was very insulting because he’s dumming a Harvard man down…talking down to him. The man is very intelligent. And “I did not win a congeniality contest.” I still don’t know why he’s saying that. I wonder if it’s because abroad in Europe Middle East and Asia people love Obama and favour him and he’s just jealous.
Phil and I sat and watched the debate and came away disappointed as we thought we would. Neither said much of any substance or offered really good answers to the questions put to them. I thought both looked nervous, especially mcc, who after all had hurried back to dc to solve the usa economy. The one good point for me was mentioning health care reforms. My main concern is this, without being healthy you can not do your best at most everything. To me, the whole $$$ issue is not a surprise. When you are told to invest and become rich, most did so without the smallest knowledge of how the stock markets are ran or the rules. You just see $$$signs. Our greed and selfishness have gotten us into this mess. Now we have the result of all this madness. I don’t have the answers to how to save our woes. I do believe that neithetr candidate alone can do it. We’ll all have to make difficult decisions soon. I hope we will be successful. Peace
Thank you Bud Evans. Thank you for confirming what I have thought all along. Where are our outspoken leaders? Where is the gay Dr. King? Who will replace Harvey Milk? Where is the visual presence we began to have in the 60’s and again in the 90’s? Of course Obama won. He has a fresher more global view of the subject matter in the debate. Post- Clinton it appears we are allowing ourselves to ” sit at the back of the bus” when it comes to what is important to our community. The marriage law debate is only a part of what we, as a community need. We need a strong leader. I don’t think Cher’s daughter is up to the task. I haven’t seen much of any other politician sticking their face out there to make a difference. Please someone mention one name that has some clout. Who is our Mr. Smith we can send to Washington? Barney Frank? We need our Rosa parks today. I want to sit up front and drink from the political water fountain every hetro can drink from.
McCain mentioned San Kennedy in the hospital why didn’t Obama have the grace to mention Sen Kenedy whom NcCain called a friend, lion of the senate, etc.
I am no fan of McCain and his vision of the country, but at least he has the demeanor of a gentleman, why Obama sometimes comes off as arrogant,cocky and self-assured.
I hope that McCain doeesn’t start wowing the voting public more than Obame and I am afraid a lot of people are going to think that McCain won this debate and is the more presidential looking of the two.Because I don’t another 4 Bush-like years of downhill for economy and uphill battle for GLBT rights plus pandering to corporation. And with a grossly underqualified Palin in need of muzzling until she “learns her way around and gets training in what McCAin needs her to say and do. The idea that we have a Palin and her meddling husband Todd who just can’t duck out of the picture and has insert himself as someone noone elected to interact with leaderts and to make commentary as though he were running things. Just imagine Palin with little practical foreign policy except maybe her state’s lol level interactions with neighboring Russia of a very likely minor nature not noticeable to those outside Alaska. Alaska was once owned by Russia until it was bought from Russia by the US government in the 19th century.
Back to Palin. The idea of an inexperienced “little girl type” Palin potentially within a heartbeat on a nuclear trigger assisted in her position by her “unelected to the job” husband Todd just makes me very nervous. Palin is a horrible choice for VP.
But I don’t like Obama either, but I voting for him because Biden has long experience in the US Senate and can maybe guide Obama where needed on foreigh policy and defense, arrogant Obama of the thin US senatorial experience and thin foreign policy experience himself needs watching and help but backed up by Biden, I consider Obama less of a liability for our nation than Palin under McCain. I am relieved than Obama’s wife stays in the background unlike Palin’s meddling husband Todd who is always in the same room with his wife whether that be appropriae or not for the situation at hand.
Why would you expect Obama to mention Senator Kennedy? The man could not even remember the name of the soldier, who’s bracelet he supposedly has?
Face it, Obama is out for himself and himself alone.