Debate Reaction

Well, this will go down as the Joe the Plumber Debate. There must have been 20 mentions of this random plumber from ohio who was supposed to represent America at large. he was a small business owner a family man, pretty much whatever the situation called for. I can say everyone is hoping to never hear about this guy again.

On the expectations for the night Obama retained his cool and steady demeanor. McCain exacerbated the angry narrative. McCain started strong with some passionate rhetoric designed to make the case for him as a maverick. He laid out an impressive list of things he has bucked his party on and really stuck Obama on the issue of being an orthodox dem. Putting aside whether this point is makes any sense when the country has agreed the gop has done everything wrong the last eight years it was a highpoint for McCain.

McCain really began to fall apart though after the issue of the campaign tone was introduced. he tried to pin the negativity on Obama and his refusal to do town halls. this would have simply been an eye roll and move on if he had not followed up with the john lewis comments. Getting into lewis mccain tried to make himself look like the victim. it really did not work. He claimed that he denounced everyone who made comments that were out of bounds but of course this was untrue. The entire segment played false on McCain's part to anyone who has been paying attention.

I was wrong in my prediction that Ayers and Acorn would be either go unremarked or be brought up by Obama.McCain did go there but failed to do it in a coherent way and Obama handled it without issue. It was made even worse by obama's ruthless focus on the issues which made mccain look small when he talked about ayers. so ayers should just be over at this point.

Obama dominated the health care segment and it was by far his best part of the debate. Obama looked into the camera and laid out his health care plan in concrete and easy to grasp terms. he was confident and direct. McCain in contrast tried to explain his plan and to attack obama's. He was clearly uninformed about both his and obamas. Obama made the point that McCain would tax benefits and that his tax credit was less than the cost of buying a plan. Obama destroyed mccain on the mandate and fine point. Zero? ouch.

McCain also ran into a great amount of trouble on the issue of abortion and judicial nominees. His ridicule of a health of the mother exemption will not play well. it looked cruel. He claimed it was a extreme left position when it is not. I cant help but think mccain really blew it on the issue. He also was very incoherent and contradictory on how he would select judges. No litmus test on roe but if you like roe your unqualified?

Again McCain was completely unable to handle himself in a calm and detached manner. his body language and actual language was far too hostile. He exudes contempt at these debates and it is not apparent why when obama is calm and polite. McCain's anger issues will be one of the lasting narratives of the campaign.

McCain was wrong on education policy but by then the debate was already over and mccain failed on all of his objectives.

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Debate Prediction

Obama wins. McCain's problem is that he has to try and knock obama out and make him look unqualified. He has to do this while sitting only a couple feet away at a table. He cannot use any character based attacks on Sen Obama because no one other than the far right is at all interested in hearing them. People care about one thing this election, the economy. They dont care about it in any nebulous balanced budget sense either, they want to hear details that are so intense they cant actually understand them. Then they want them explained as to how exactly they will work. McCain is not capable of doing that. He simply is not versed well enough in economics to do it.

Obama will not make this easy for McCain. Obama will go after McCain on his policies. He will not let up on McCain and hammer him on the economy on his erratic behavior. McCain will get visibly annoyed and angry at Sen Obama and will have several awkward creepy laugh moments.

For my million dollar long shot; The topic of voter fraud will come up. It will be Obama who talks about it in reference to McCain Acorn and trhe recent court case in ohio.

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Debate Reaction...

McCain lost and he lost big. i did not need to see the snap polls to bolster my claim but they do back me up. McCain did not do terribly but he it made for a couple of strange moments when he called obama "that one". It was just kinda weird. I did not see it as the end all and be all of the debate but the media needs a narrative and that fits best with the result of the first debate where mccain failed to look at obama. "Now he wont even address him etc..." McCain loses any policy discussion because he is ont he wrong side of the public on his policy. He cant win on the merits. So he lost the debate itself but he also lost the larger fight over regaining some positive aspects of his campaign. He needed a big headline out of this and he did not come close.

The format sucked. The entire idea behind a town hall is that the people actually ask and the candidates answer questions off the cuff. There should be follow ups and it is supposed to be unscripted. Last night was anything but. i mean brokaw had a script he could not read when he candidate stepped in front of it at the end of the night. How lame.

I thought this provided a big opportunity for mccain when both candidates were visibly chaffing at the restrictions to just blow up the format and ask obama to shift to a real town hall style. Talk about a crazy made for tv moment that could introduce major uncertainty into the campaign. McCain cannot win as long as the campaign stays sedate and boring. He is behind and behind by a lot. If he is willing to take the ayers track of throwing away his honor he should have been willing to throw away the debate format. The media and the people would have loved it. Maybe he would not have done as well on the answering but really it would have provided the chance to dominate the debate in a way the actual format never gave him.

Note that McCain failed to bring ayers into the debate. He was not man enough to do it to obama's face. He was not able to stand on stage and call obama a terrorist. maybe the campaign would not have been negative if they had done the town halls because mccain could never attack obama like that to his face. even palin was willing to go after biden with the white flag of surrender. baring a nuclear moment i dont see mccain turning this around. Obam by 4.5 points in popular vote and he wins 376 electoral votes.

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