Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Obama was talking about humanitarian efforts in such places and Darfur, and McCain starts out by talking about Iraq.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Obama Doctrine > McCain's same Petreus/leave in defeat blah blah blah name drop Reagan again...he sounds like he's running out of breath. or rather Clear Answer > non answer stump speech

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

and other thing. slam mccain on petraeus. he's using it all wrong.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

i still have never heard Obama just remind everybody that Petreaus said that this isn't a war you can claim "victory" to.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

oh man, McCain storytelling again.......

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

"i was eating a rice pudding once and i thought to myself 'how can you make a pudding out of rice?' and it got me thinking about the economy, and about how you could make money out of thin air, and it'll result in inflation. so whether it's rice pudding or money, the end result is still the same: next time your dog craps on my lawn i'm calling the cops"

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Goddamn, quit fucking up the rules! You're both looking like idiots.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

lame response from McCain. more of "i know how etc etc etc"

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

i dont think anyone really cares about time. i mean it's aggravating, but theyre both doing it because they know it doesnt hurt them to go over unless theyre RAMBLING POINTLESSLY LIKE AN OLD FOGEY

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

name dropped Petreaus again. and the Surge. and he didnt really answer the Afghanistan question

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

i'm liking this:

MCCAIN NUL POINTS

it could just be the delicious obama lovin bias in this forum, but the impression im getting is that while both are nutting out the same ol, obama is managing a legit answer or two in there while mccain "isnt really answering anything"
yes? no?

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

McCain lobbying for Georgia again.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

yes. in a way McCain is just giving you the headline, Obama is telling you the actual article. that's the best analogy i can come up with.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

At least McCain can pronounce "nuclear" correctly.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

good. i'm sensing people getting a wee bit tired of non-answers in the debate, and due to the royal mess we're in, are actually looking for someone who can DEFINE things.
i'm also thinking on a tangeant that mccains tack of spending all his cash on attack ads are going to get exhausting. you can be the "all-balls" candidate on war because it's (falsely) seen as needing someone who can see in black and white to do the right thing. but people know the economy is complicated, and it wont make people any smarter overall, but i bet they'll be looking more for who SOUNDS smarter than they usually do.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

there was too much rinse repeat stump speech answers/attacks from McCain even for newer questions in this debate. too many "i know what it's like" just like his end statement"

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Well, that was a bit of a mess. I'm obviously biased, but Obama came across a bit better in how he spoke.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

I wish McCain was just STFU about Iraq. The vast majority of this country does not support that war and wants to get out and he keeps beating on the drum that we'll leave when we feel like it. And he hammers Obama about stating that he'd invade an ally. Pakistan hasn't done shit for us, they disengaged themselves from the militant areas to save their own skins.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

dammit - missed this one. was at school

Sullivan reckons Obama cleaned up.

10.33 pm. This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I've watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out.It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don't really see how the McCain campaign survives this.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

i'd say they were both fairly even at the first third or half of the debate, and Obama (not following the format and launching more counterpoints) got better during the rest of the debate. it also didnt help that when McCain decided to also have time to launch into his own counterargument, he just went back to "i know how" schlock which didnt even address Obama's point.

well the first 2 debates are supposed to favor McCain (foreign policy, then town hall format) and he failed to really dominate in both.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Chuck, I read the Daily Dish every 15 minutes. It's funny to think the guy was once a Bush apologist but I agree with his takes on just about everything. I don't think this was an Obama mauling...certainly Obama got the better of the more specific, detailed exchanges but otherwise it was really just another stage for them to recycle their stump speeches on. That's bad for McCain...he really needed to win this town hall tonight and he did not. He is probably going to cement his loss in Florida and possibly lose more ground in Ohio after this one. A conservative co-worker of mine said he felt this contest was over after we found out what we've found out about Palin. He thinks it'll be a landslide victory for Obama.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

I thought it was fairly even when looking at the debate only. But since it's only a month left in the process, McCain lost. Obama scored big points with me when he answered the early question about how the bailout is supposed to free up the credit freeze going on. Simple and concise. McCain still couldn't control himself in making smart-ass quips. Stuff like that doesn't work when McCain says he has a steady hand.

Jason

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

McCain again came across to the wife and I as disrespectful and condescending overall, too. "That one"?

And frankly, I think that more than this debate, the recent dirty tactics about Ayers and such are really going to sink the McCain campaign. Independents are a little more concerned with what's happening to their 401k's right now than they are with who was on the board of a charitable foundation with Obama.

Surprisingly though, Palin thought the debate went super for her fellow Maverick...

"It was a great night for America. [McCain is] proposing real plans that will work for economic recovery and energy independence," she said. "I think Barack was even less candid than usual, which I was kinda surprised. But McCain has fought on and sounded very energized, and it was a good night for him, for all of us, for all of America."

What's ahead? "It's gonna be a great 28 days to go," she said. "Taking this message of reform on the road and just having it resonate more and more every day is what I believe’s happening. And it's good. It's very good. I look forward to the 28 days."

The best thing about Palin being the VP nominee right now is that after she's made such a global fool of herself, she'll never be a Presidential nominee.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Oh yeah, McCain proposed the government buying up all the bad mortgages which would cost like $300 billion. I hear a lot of conservatives are angry about that since we just spent $850 billion last week on this. -3 for McCain.

But yeah, no game changers means win for Obama.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

The sooner Palin and her complete ability to mangle and just desiccate the English language move on the better.

I mean - that sentence above in bold, makes basic sense, until the final phrase. What does she "believe is happening."? Where's the subject? What's she doing with the tenses?? It's clumsy, fugly English.

It's doing my head in. And I'm not even that much of a grammar hardass as a teacher.

Not sure this link has been thrown in yet - from Slate: Diagramming Sarah.

It's a good read if you get the time.

"There are plenty of people out there—not only English teachers but also amateur language buffs like me—who believe that diagramming a sentence provides insight into the mind of its perpetrator. The more the diagram is forced to wander around the page, loop back on itself, and generally stretch its capabilities, the more it reveals that the mind that created the sentence is either a richly educated one—with a Proustian grasp of language that pushes the limits of expression—or such an impoverished one that it can produce only hot air, baloney, and twaddle.

I found myself considering this paradox once again when confronted with the sentences of Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. No one but a Republican denial specialist could argue with the fact that Sarah Palin's recent TV appearances have scaled the heights of inanity. The sentences she uttered in interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and Katie Couric seem to twitter all over the place like mourning doves frightened at the feeder. Which left me wondering: What can we learn from diagramming them?"

Here's the author's diagram for this answer from the Couric interview.

"It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where—where do they go?"


http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/...nceDiagram.gif

It's a doozy alright.

"In a few short weeks, Sarah Palin has produced enough poppycock to keep parsers and diagrammers busy for a long time. In the end, though, out of her mass of verbiage in the Sean Hannity interview, Palin did manage to emit a perfectly lucid diagram-ready statement that sums up, albeit modestly, not the state of the economy that she was (more or less) talking about but the quality of her thinking:

http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/...ceDiagram3.gif

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

really funny quote from Erica Jong via huffingtonpost:

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Well so much for my earlier comments about this being the game changer with the Reagan moment!

As I was watching it this time, it struck me how tetchy and childish McCain was. All that pacing around just looked weird, a bit forced. He came over as restless - and breathless. (I try to avoid criticisms based on age, but let's just say he sounded exhausted because of it, and that can't have gone down very well.)

Someone made the point that while Obama was answering his questions and McCain was in the background, you could see McCain traipsing around, sometimes walking up to the audience for no apparent reason, then back, then standing looking defensive, etc - whereas when McCain was answering, Obama chose to return to his chair and just sat and watched him, confidently smiling (not smirking), and looking totally at ease.

So on presentation, to me, it looked real bad for McCain last night. The whole shaking-hands-with-the-veteran audience member (sorry, "his friiiend") had me groaning because it was so predictable that McCain would pounce on an opportunity like that for some back-slapping. You could see it coming 30 seconds before it happened.

On substance - I have to say I was disappointed with Obama. He dodged answers so blatantly at times that it made me cringe. The sacrifice question was a classic example of this. McCain did marginally better IMO at giving answers relevant to the question - just marginally. They were still crazy answers (the mortgage solution for instance) but I thought he appeared to be making a greater attempt to connect with the question than Obama did on a couple of occasions. Perhaps I picked up on Obama's failures in this area more than McCain's because I had higher hopes for him. I don't think the debate was of a particularly high standard from either candidate to be honest.

Some of the blogs are trying to talk up the "that guy" reference, and the delay in McCain receiving Obama's handshake. Not sure either of those things reveal as much as Obama supporters maybe want them to. I think the "That guy" comment was just McCain trying to be informal/familiar but doing it clumsily. As for the handshake delay, to me it just looked as if McCain took a few seconds before realising it was aimed at him rather than his wife.

Not that it matters now. Most seem to be putting this down to another Obama win.

What stunt will be next?

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Well in terms of stunts, I think the Repubs should be encouraging more of their supporters to produce their own campaign placards like this one.

:D

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

as daily kos named it: the get off my lawn variety hour.

LOL

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Reagan was a great person in the human being sense of the word. Now, as a politician, one should reflect on the nations' cocaine problem at the time, no?

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

re: the jokes, in McCain's defense, the audience was told to be silent.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Haha, spot on! :D

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

That's exactly why I think things like the "that one" comment will turn out to be more significant than they objectively deserve to be. McCain is clearly painting a picture of himself as a condescending, frustrated, angry, flailing old man, and calling Obama "that one" only helps solidify the image. I don't say this in an effort to put him down with name-calling, I'm just speaking to how he's been coming across.

In his previous debate, he blatantly refused to make eye contact with Obama, and even looked like he could hardly stand to shake hands with him. He's been running non-stop negative ads, which at this point comprise almost 100% of his advertising budget compared to less than 50% of Obama's advertising budget going to negative spots. His campaign's message has ping-ponged around from energy ("drill baby drill"), to excitement over the new addition to Team Maverick, Sarah Palin, to suddenly adopting the banner of change that Obama has been pushing all along, to suspending his campaign to solve the economic crisis, and now to attacking Obama's character more harshly than ever - to the point that the audiences at his speeches shout out "terrorist" and "kill him" in response to questions they raise about Obama. He's just making himself look bad.

And incidentally, about 15 seconds into the video where McCain asks "who is the real Barack Obama", and a guy yells "terrorist", there is a very brief but clear look of troubled surprise that comes over McCain's face. It's the first hint he's shown me in a long time that the tone his campaign has taken isn't actually his cup of tea. Honestly, that brief expression made me feel kind of bad for the guy. It reminded me that had he won the Presidency back in 2000, he'd probably be a relatively popular President right now, and we most likely wouldn't be in the dire straights we're facing. Instead, he lost to Bush and now he finds himself in the last chance to get to the White House he'll have in his life, and he's losing to a newcomer who's surprise successes have baffled the overwhelming majority of the established political world. I in no way condone or forgive McCain's horrible behavior in this campaign because of this, but it makes me a little sad to remember that a man I once had respect for now repulses me.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14400.html

In regards to the "That one" comment,
Wow, it's like they have no self-awareness.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Wait....I thought they were "turning the page" on the economic crisis. :confused:

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

I'm surprised she didn't say, "I’m shocked that at a moment of national crisis, where our economy is on the minds of every single person, I am shocked that that domestic terrorist-loving elitist liberal Obama and his campaign are again proving to be the fussiest campaign in American history."

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

good post sean, there's definitely something sad about how the mccain campaign turned out. i went from optimistic ("i rather mccain didnt win but if he does were not completely fucked...") to extremely anxious about the election ('oh god what the hell is he doing...)

i like this piece in the NYT, namely because it sort of addresses mccain's transformation and the doubtless conflict there must be about it

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

I completely understand where you're coming from with this.

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

To me this election is not so much about mccain vs obama.

its about

this america

vs

this america

Re: 10/7 Presidential Debate
 

Snap!

Just watched both of those two videos and was about to give them their own thread.

Donna Brazile's comments are right on the money and what it's about. This is about ideas, about inspiration, about strength of character. It's about taking this USA to places its never been before.

The others - they've got their point. They're pissed. They're angry. They're capable of vaguely coherent argument.

I just trust they're still drinking on election day and forget to get to the polling booth.

Or crash into it whilst riding their quad bike to the liquor store.

Besides - isn't Hussein Obama leading in Virginia? Maybe the genteel rednecks have seen the light.