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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.
I agree with Tracy. It’s sad that these are the only two to chose from. But we the people are responsible for letting our government become as bad as it is.
Thank God(Goddess of the God or deity of your choice).
Finally, more and more gay and lesbian Americans are making their voices heard that Obama is a sell out. I am very left wing and to be honest I would like to vote for Obama. However for that to happen, Obama has to make a principled and clear stand in support marriage equality along gay and lesbian equality in its entirety. Sound bites and pleasant words wont cut it. And when I mean principled and clear stand, it means I want him to enforce the Constitution, even if by force. In the 1950s and 1960s, when schools didn’t desegregate, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson sent the National Guard to enforce the Constitution. By the same token, when state supreme courts make decisions in favor of our rights, we need people in office who will use all available means of enforcing the Constitution and not timidly hide from the Lynch mob. Why should gay and lesbian human rights be treated as any less important than the rights of African Americans or any other group?!?!
I cannot vote for Obama nor any candidate as long as they oppose marriage equality. And any candidate who does support marriage equality will get my vote.
If Obama loses the election, then he has noone but himself to blame. Democrats have been losing elections in droves, because they spend too many time trying to act like Republicans only to alienate their moderate, liberal, progressive and gay bases. We already have a right wing party in America, we don’t need two. And Obama’s black(or caramel) skin should not buy him a White House, people should be smart enough to vote on issues or not at all.
I am gratified to find so many soul-mates on 365Gay.com forums, such as: Simon Jones, Trace, Rodney Moore, Mr. Smith, and so many more of you who are coming out everyday to denounce this farce that was being epitomized as “our last hope“. Too many of us have been deluded into thinking that Obama will usher in a Golden Age of Freedom for our kind. We should not hold our breath on that presumption — unless we are tired of breathing, that is.
As I said before, I have no doubt that our priority to him, and to a Democratic-controlled Congress, would rate somewhere far below that of protecting the Black-footed Ferret and passing a resolution to honor National Cabbage Day. If we don’t get a pro-labor, pro-civil rights third party firmly entrenched, in at least 10% of the seats in Congress, then the two party power structure will continue to cooperate in at least two things: (1) favor the current status quo, job-destroying, financial Darwinism of Wall Street, while (2) concurrently doing their best bit of “across the aisle cooperation” by resolutely ignoring the GLBT Community into complete irrelevancy.
So, I thank all of you who understand that by our not demanding our rights from those we have put into office — we gain nothing. By eagerly settling for insulting proposals of social apartheid and segregationist legislative “final solutions” to our disenfranchisement — we deserve the contempt we receive . I wish more people would understand that we are not traitors to our own kind, committing political “homo“-cide against the “Gay race“, just because we point out the dangerous hypocrisy of those who claim to be our “friends”. The “go along to get along” Uncle Tomishness, of what embarrassingly passes as leadership in our community, has just made enablers of us all. Don’t we get the kind of leadership we deserve, if we do not demand better?
I implore people not to send more money to HRC if they continue to just wine and dine greedy, power-hungry politicians who could care less about our rights. Just ask yourself this: when the day comes that we finally achieve our full civil rights in this hateful country, who will need the Democrats to advocate for GLBT causes? Don’t you think the DNC realizes that fear every time they hit us up for the tens of millions of dollars we splurge on their campaigns in return for half-hearted promises they have no intention of keeping?
For all the many years of our financial support and with our loyal vote, can you name one major piece of legislation, or even a small one; any pro-GLBT civil rights bill that has ever been passed when the Democrats were in power for the majority of the last fifty years? We got DADT and DOMA instead (under a Democratic President, I might add) which could not have passed without the consent of the Democrats and the full collaboration of the leadership of the Democratic party with the Republicans.
Too many Democratic politicians fear that if we get what we want, then we wont need them anymore. Our complete egalitarian assimilation into this society would spell doom for many who have exploited the GLBT community for so very long. It is not in their best interest to end our dependency on the Democratic Party. They fear that; I smell it on them. We are useful (and reliable) fools with the cash and the votes they need — especially in a close election.
I agree with you “Simon Jones”, and with so many of you in the GLBT community at large who have seen through the Democrats’ cynical ploy. If only we truly had stronger leadership in our community we just might have a stronger, more united community. Where are our role models for the next generation of GLBT youth to emulate?
We really need committed people who could organize peaceful protests, and insist on our uncompromising demand for equality, while convincing the Circus Clowns and the Refugees from Marti Gras to leave their sequined jockstraps and pink fright wigs at home. This rebuke has nothing to do with the legitimate transgender community, which also desires to be taken seriously. It is about self-destructive exhibitionism which degrades us all as a legitimate minority group that is struggling for its freedom. Since when did we become the GLBT and E(xhibitionist) Community?
Perhaps if we would act more determined, and with true pride, about not settling for anything less than being treated with unequivocal respect for our human dignity and for our human rights; then perhaps, just perhaps, more people would believe we deserve our fair share of both.
~ Bud Evans