All Talked Out - Debates Over - Who Won?

[vison]

I only watched a little bit but I did enjoy this exchange:

Moderator: You two have been real jerks towards each other. What's up with that?

Dude 1: Yeah, well he's been a bigger jerk than I have.

Dude 2: No way! You've been a bigger jerk than I have.

Dude 1: Nuh uh!

Dude 2: Yuh huh!

Dude 1: Nuh uh!

Dude 2: Yuh huh!

Dude 1: Nuh uh!

Dude 2: Yuh huh!

Moderator: Alright, next question.....

Then you must have been watching a different debate than I was. Did you not see Mr. Obama deliberately and calmly try to turn the conversation by saying, "our hurt feelings are not important, the issues are important"? And Mr. McCain wittily riposted with another juvenile attack? And Mr. Obama saying, "I can stand another 3 weeks of being attacked but America can't stand another 4 years of these divisive politics"? Come on, yovargas. Fair is fair.

Neither man is perfect, and I hate attack ads as much as the next person. But there are truthful attacks and lying attacks. There are pissy, nasty angry little men and there are men who try to defuse the anger. Which one do you prefer?

[Primula Baggins]

yov, I think you should write a complete official transcript. I can contribute one exchange:

Dude 1: <shines flashlight on face from below> Ayers! Terrorism! Booga booga!

Dude 2: <smiles at camera> Economy! Uhhh—health care! And, ermmmm, middle class!

Moderator: Now let's turn to the issue of puppies and kittens.

Dude 1: Tax credits for puppies!

Dude 2: Infrastructure jobs for kittens!

Moderator: Thank you and good night.


Edit: To be serious, I thought this was McCain's strongest debate and that he opened stronger than Obama. He had the single best line of the night: "Senator Obama, if you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

But he didn't sustain it, and by the end he seemed to me to be flailing. He hurt himself on the abortion issue, with that sneer about the exception for the health of the mother being used as an excuse for anything. These pesky women and their notions!

[vison]

Most women are "pro-choice". It's a simple matter, really.

He was rudely dismissive. Sux to be him.

[yovargas]

Come on, yovargas. Fair is fair.

Yes. Fair is fair. Obama said "let's stop this fightin' and a feudin'" while criticizing the McCain camp for having jerks at his rallies, and took that "if it's about the economy, you lose" jab, and throwing out stats about about who's got more negative ads. Smooth move. Get in as many jabs in as you can while saying you aren't interested in taking jabs. Nice.

[sauronsfinger]

I agree with Prims observation about the abortion comment from McCain. He just about said "oh that health of the mother is just an excuse you always use" and it came off as very offensive not just to women but to anyone who cares about health, health care and rights.

The abortion discussion was sandwhiched in between Health Care and Education and all three registered very strong for Obama and weak for McCain. McCain scored highest with his "tax and spend" lines but after months on the campaign trail is that all we now have? The same old Republican line that has been their mantra for decades now?

I do think Obama was too cautious tonight. There were plenty of opportunities for him to strike back hard - but the focus groups give the debate to him so my instincts to fight with a baseball bat are obviously wrong.

But it sure would hve been more fun to watch.

[Primula Baggins]

Come on, yovargas. Fair is fair.

Yes. Fair is fair. Obama said "let's stop this fightin' and a feudin'" while criticizing the McCain camp for having jerks at his rallies, and took that "if it's about the economy, you lose" jab, and throwing out stats about about who's got more negative ads. Smooth move. Get in as many jabs in as you can while saying you aren't interested in taking jabs. Nice.

Fair is fair. "If it's about the economy, we lose" was a quote from someone on the McCain campaign. I heard it days ago.

Edit: Link

[sauronsfinger]

And even that does not go far enough Prim. Somewhere in this thread, Voronwë posted the comments of the McCain campaign manager a month ago which said this election would be about things other than issues. So its just not the economy they do not want to talk about - its any substantive issue.

Washingtonpost.com September 3, 2008

Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain's presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

The CNN poll indicated that less than 25% of respondents thought the Ayers stuff is a serious concern of theirs. Over a majority said it means nothing to them and is not even an issue. Do you think that will get them to drop it? Not on your life.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I'm not going to be fair to McCain at the expense of Obama. Did Obama talk about not liking the jabs while throwing some of his own? Yes, but that doesn't say to me that Obama is a worse candidate. McCain proved that he cares less about the issues and more about character attacks than Obama.

[Mrs.Underhill]

I'm glad the debates are over, and yes, I wanted to smack Joe the Plumber over the head.
Funny thing - I went to unwind on Steward/Colbert afterwards, as usual, and Colbert had a sketch on phone sex with Osama bin Laden who pretended to be Osama the Plumber like in porno movies! And they record those shows before the debate, so that was a bit of prescience. I wonder if they cut it out of the repeats tomorrow, as to not to offend Joe the Plumber.

It was the best so far debate for McCain and the worst for Obama, but it still was no contest, and McCain sunk much lower in my opinion with those things:

Daring to throw a tantrum over Lewis. Really. That man was giving you the advice, sharing his hard-won experience on the real danger to the country McCain was stirring up. When such a respected figure warns you, gives you a scolding, you say sorry and thank you, and you re-examine yourself - not stomp your feet like a bratty teenager. With that McCain lost the moral capital he gained with me a week ago, when he started to try to control his crowds. Now I can see it was just a show, made out of necessity and after public outrage. He doesn't get it, he doesn't own to his own mistakes, and that's scary for a leader.
Obama's reply on people not caring about his or McCain hurt feelings was perfect.

And McCain again complaining about town hall debates - it was straight from the comedy shows where that exact line was mocked so much.
I guess that's why he refuses to meet with foreign leaders/enemies - because they won't do it in town halls?! That was pathetic.

McCain leering derisively when Obama was talking of people healthcare problems. That was the moment I got really angry - as again, he doesn't get it, doesn't get that that looked dismissive not just of Obama policies, but of those people with health problems.

But it got even worse for me when McCain again mocked late-term abortion because of danger to the life/health of a mother. I felt offended, as a woman. You just don't mock those things, as that whatever way a woman or a doctor decides on this, whatever the decision - birth of an unviable infant or an abortion- it is a terrible, terrible ordeal for a woman. I know some people who went through this, and I say again - don't dare to mock, especially if you are a man and have no idea what is involved.

But the abortion discussion was great and the high point of the debate. Predictably, I liked the way Obama tried to bridge the divide by saying that no one is pro-abortion, and everyone is for helping mothers and babies. Fat chance on that - I mean, on bridging the divide, but at least points for trying.

As for energy, education, taxes, budget - same old, same old.
The only other new thing was about trade agreements and Columbia. Again, McCain has shown that he's all for big business interest and doesn't care much for protections and regulations on both trading sides. Not sure how it went down with different people, but I'm for NAFTA but I have a sore point about shipping jobs overseas. And McCain added insult to injury by suggesting that we should re-educate US workers who lost their jobs due to this - in community colleges. Thanks no thanks.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

It is funny to listen to Steve Schmidt of the McCain campaign throwing his own tantrum over the Lewis comments while defending the Palin "paling with terrorists" attacks. Apparently, the Palin attacks are completely justified, but a fellow Republican senator's comments are the responsibility of someone whose campaign has no official affiliation with. According to Mr. Schmidt, Obama and Ayers friendship was closer than any two people in his [Schmidt's] hometown. I am paraphrasing what Mr. Schmidt said on C-Span.

McCain's nasty campaign keeps me fully biased against him and I have no faith in his ability to lead this country. I fear especially for myself... a part of the middle class that McCain doesn't seem to think that he owes anything as our potential future leader. If McCain is elected the Bush years will continue.

[yovargas]

I'm not going to be fair to McCain at the expense of Obama. Did Obama talk about not liking the jabs while throwing some of his own? Yes, but that doesn't say to me that Obama is a worse candidate.

True or not, it shouldn't prevent anybody from acknowledging when either candidate is being a jerk.

[sauronsfinger]

Late last night we saw the results of both CBS and CNN polls which put Obama as the winner of the third debate by roughly 2 to 1 margins over McCain. Here is a third survey of opinion - from the Media Curves company.

They surveyed 1400 people who watched the debate. Republicans thought their man won while Dems thought their man won. No surprise there. However, Independents went like this

Obama 60%
McCain 30%
tie 10%

Given that so many of the experts on the various shows have said they thought McCain had his best night while Obama seemed off his game a bit, it has to be terribly frustrating for the McCain campaign to look at all these numbers and take any comfort in them.

I wonder how much of these numbers are more of a personal reaction to both candidates. Are people really saying who they thought "won" the debate? Or are they saying "here is the guy I like"? McCain comes off as not very likable with the smirking and rolling the eyes and barely restrained anger. He also comes across as very uncomfortable before the camera and looks extremely stiff. Yes, I know about the war injuries - but his entire body language just screams 'let me outta here'. Obama comes off as cool, calm and collected. I have to think that says as much as all the words they say or positions they take.

[Dave_LF]

All that blather about Ayres, then "my campaign is about the economy and he wants to raise your taxes"?!?! The man is making a fool of himself.

Here is the exact quote:

And it's not the fact -- it's not the fact that Senator Obama chooses to associate with a guy who in 2001 said that he wished he had have bombed more, and he had a long association with him. It's the fact that all the -- all of the details need to be known about Senator Obama's relationship with them and with ACORN and the American people will make a judgment.

And my campaign is about getting this economy back on track, about creating jobs, about a brighter future for America. And that's what my campaign is about and I'm not going to raise taxes the way Senator Obama wants to raise taxes in a tough economy. And that's really what this campaign is going to be about.

It might have been impolitic of Obama to laugh at that, but who can blame him? And no; I didn't edit anything out. He literally said those two things back-to-back.

Edit: I'm apparently not the only one zeroing in on this. fivethirtyeight identified the above as the moment McCain lost the debate. Newsweek has this:

The Kitchen Sink Debate

pre-debate speculation centered on "which McCain" would attempt to change the game: the gentleman who's spent the past few days telling audiences that he relishes his "underdog" status, pledges to "fight for [his country]" and refuses to impugn Obama personally, or the scrapper who's still airing negative ads 100 percent of the time and promising to "whip [Obama's] you-know-what."

The answer was immediately apparent to anyone with a pulse. Over the course of 90 minutes--and I apologize if my count is not complete; my fingers can only type so fast--McCain accused Obama of being a) a craven wealth-spreader (at least eight times), b) an abject tax-raiser, especially on folks unfortunate enough to make $42,000 a year, c) a lily-livered coward who's never once stood up to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, d) a town-hall avoider, e) a public-financing flip-flopper, f) the most avid negative advertiser in American history, g) a befriender of "washed-up terrorist(s)," h) an enabler of "one of the greatest frauds in voter history" (which just so happens to be "destroying the fabric of American democracy"), i) an "eloquent" dissembler, j) a support of infanticide and, finally, k) a guy who wants to do all kinds of unspeakable things to someone named Joe the Plumber, up to and including raising his taxes, redistributing his money and fining him for choosing the wrong kind of health care. (No word yet on whether Obama plans to spit in Joe's beer when he's looking in the other direction.) After all that, McCain's claim that his "campaign is about getting this economy back on track, about creating jobs, about a brighter future for America" seemed like a punchline.

[Maria]

Even my husband laughed at that, Dave, and he's been a McCain supporter up to now. "Random firing of synapses?" he said when it happened.

And when McCain summed up at the end, my husband cracked me up by wistfully saying, "I wish I knew Morse code." I was confused for a minute but then saw that McCain was blinking very rapidly at uneven intervals. I didn't hear another thing the man was saying, we were both trying to decide if they were dots or dashes.... and was that an "SOS"?

My husband still won't outright *say* he's no longer for McCain, but he's wavering.

[sauronsfinger]

Anyone else hope that future debates are put back into the hands of the League of Women Voters? They need a format - not three - which is going to spur real debate and not just be a platform for talking points. We saw more real debate last night and it was due to both format and the moderator.

In the end, I am now convinced that the real thing which came out the these debates is a voters understanding of the temperment of each of the candidates. We have watched them for nearly five hours answer questions under pressure and a personality emerges of each man.

I wonder why Senator McCain can come across so well one day - his campaign relaunch on Monday with his Fighting For You theme as the happy warrior - and then comes across so negatively on the debate last night? When he started to describe the writing on rally attendees baseball caps, I really thought he had lost it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Did anyone else notice that McCain wore a blue tie, while Obama wore a red one?

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I have always thought the entire point of the debates was to see which temperment and personality you, the voter, would rather have in the White House leading the country. A candidate's policies are on his website, in his commercials, and at his rallies. Debates let you see how a candidate reacts to opposition, attack, disagreement and all of those things that allow you to measure what kind of president we'll have. Even last election's debates had the same effect. We saw a confusing Kerry and George Bush who answered briefly and on his points (despite his points being very disagreeable).

yova, I won't ever prevent you from acknowledging when a candidate is a jerk. I try to acknowledge when Obama has been a jerk, but when McCain acts like a bigger jerk I get distracted. That's just me, though.

[Dave_LF]

Did anyone else notice that McCain wore a blue tie, while Obama wore a red one?

I didn't. What does it mean? Do you wear a blue tie to avoid looking too angry?

[Cerin]

I think the sleeper segment of the debate may have been the comments related to abortion, in concert with McCain's apparent conflating of autism with Down's Syndrome. He disdainfully dismissed women's health related to abortion as being a matter of no concern to him; and then in comments directly relating to autism, he solemnly observed that Palin understands that challenge more than most. Now it may be that he was meaning to say that Palin understands the challenges of having a special needs child, but he was missing a segue and it came across that he either thought Palin's child has autism rather than Down's Syndrome, or that he regards them as basically the same. I'm thinking that these two comments may significantly alienate women (except single-issue anti-choice voters).

I was also struck by the juxtaposition of McCain's pledge to freeze spending with his tender-hearted references to the need to improve various programs (one being programs for special needs children). I notice Obama took the opportunity once to point out that if you want to improve programs, you have to be willing to fund them.

[Cerin]

I wonder why Senator McCain can come across so well one day - his campaign relaunch on Monday with his Fighting For You theme as the happy warrior - and then comes across so negatively on the debate last night?

I'd say, because of too many advisors giving conflicting advice.

What a different campaign this would have been, had McCain made the decision way back to just be himself instead of trying to please the Bush-Rove 'base' of the party and firing his own advisors and replacing them with Bush people. Last night seemed to be mainly geared to please those same people yet again (they being the ones calling for him to get tough). Yet these are votes he already has in the bag because of Palin. It's puzzling, and I think it gives an impression of a schizophrenic campaign.