Daily Archives: October 7, 2008

Post-Debate Thread

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Flipping back and forth between CNN and MSNBC, it seems on the whole a consensus is forming among the bobbleheads that this debate was not a “game changer.” McCain needed a “decisive win,” Wolf Blitzer says, and he didn’t get it.

McCain was less dismissive of Obama as in the first debate — I don’t believe he said Obama “didn’t understand” this time — but he still seemed condescending, and I don’t think this is helping him.

Taegan Goddard gives it to Obama.

Tonight’s debate wasn’t even close. Sen. Barack Obama ran away with it — particularly when speaking about the economy and health care. Talking about his mother’s death from cancer was very powerful. On nearly every issue, Obama was more substantive, showed more compassion and was more presidential.

In contrast, Sen. John McCain was extremely erratic. Sometimes he was too aggressive (referring to Obama as “that one.”) Other times, he just couldn’t answer the question (on how he would ask Americans to sacrifice.) And his random attempts at jokes (hair transplants?) were just bad.

Update: From the Right — Andrew McCarthy at The Corner —

We have a disaster here — which is what you should expect when you delegate a non-conservative to make the conservative (nay, the American) case. We can parse it eight ways to Sunday, but I think the commentary is missing the big picture. …

…Now, as the night went along, did you get the impression that Obama comes from the radical Left? Did you sense that he funded Leftist causes to the tune of tens of millions of dollars? Would you have guessed that he’s pals with a guy who brags about bombing the Pentagon? Would you have guessed that he helped underwrite raging anti-Semites? Would you come away thinking, “Gee, he’s proposing to transfer nearly a trillion dollars of wealth to third-world dictators through the UN”?

This view of Obama is a complete fantasy, of course, but let’s go on …

Nope. McCain didn’t want to go there. So Obama comes off as just your average Center-Left politician. Gonna raise your taxes a little, gonna negotiate reasonably with America’s enemies; gonna rely on our very talented federal courts to fight terrorists and solve most of America’s problems; gonna legalize millions of hard-working illegal immigrants.

McCain? He comes off as Center-Right .. or maybe Center-Left … but, either way, deeply respectful of Obama despite their policy quibbles.

McCain was hardly “deeply respectful” of Obama.

Great. Memo to McCain Campaign: Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn’t; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he’s qualified for public office. You helped portray Obama as a clealy qualified presidential candidate who would fight terrorists.

The plain fact is that Obama is no terrorist sympathizer, and I think the American people finally are getting a close enough look at him to know that. However, they are also getting a close enough look at McCain to know he is an asshole.

If that’s what the public thinks, good luck trying to win this thing.

With due respect, I think tonight was a disaster for our side. I’m dumbfounded that no one else seems to think so. Obama did everything he needed to do, McCain did nothing he needed to do. What am I missing?

What the Right is missing is that the rest of the country, finally, is moving on from the fantasyland they live in

Live Blog

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Whew! I fell asleep and just woke up in time. Here we go.

First question about economy. Fastest solution to bail out retirees?

McCain wants to buy and renegotiate all bad home loans. He’s going to pay for this?

I think Obama is going to have to be careful not to get sucked into spending all his time defending his past record from McCain’s, um, imagination.

McCain has figured out that the financial crisis has something to do with bad mortgages. Swift.

Now he is going on about how great American workers are. So get them jobs, John.

McCain a “consistent reformer”? Please. Does anyone believe that?

I’ve just switched to CNN to watch the wiggly lines. McCain is speaking. The line is flat.

Will McCain please be asked to explain his health care “plan.”

Obama is speaking, and Miss Lucy (my feline roommate) just went crazy running around the room. I think she is an Obama fan.

Someone asked which sacrifices citizens can make for their country, and McCain goes on about earmarks and cutting government programs.

Obama speaks up about a call to service. The American people want to engage in meaningful change. Save energy in your home. Fuel-efficient cars. Peace corps.

Revealing, I think, that McCain only thinks in terms of what Washington does, not what Americans can do.

McCain comes on and says Obama is going to raise taxes.

He wants a commission on Medicare. To do what? He’s not making sense.

Climate change — McCain says the best way to fix it is nuclear power? That’s it?

Obama — calls climate change an opportunity; new technology can help grow economy. Government working with private sector.

I never know how these guys are coming across to undecided voters.

Obama brings up McCain’s health care “plan.” I think most people understand that $5000 for a family can’t buy health insurance. Ooo, he brought up “gold plated” health care.

Obama – we need the money we’re spending in Iraq here in the U.S. This needs to be repeated, repeated, repeated.

McCain is going on about Iraq and Petraeus and the line goes flat.

Now McCain isn’t making sense. Obama didn’t say he would attack Pakistan. We’re going to succeed in Pakistan the way we succeeded in Iraq. I’m not sure he understands that most people don’t consider Iraq a “success.”

He keeps saying Obama is going to attack Pakistan, which he clearly didn’t do.

Once again, McCain talks about General Petraeus. General Petraeus is beloved on the Right but I don’t think the majority of the American people feel anything about him one way or another. Throwing the name “Petraeus” around just doesn’t sing for most people.

The BooMan: “McCain sucks harder than a vacuum.”

McCain’s “league of democracies” idea is just surreal.

Passing on the American Dream to the next generation. Good closing statement. Not exactly answering the question, but good closing statement.

McCain is talking about a “steady hand at the tiller.” That would be Obama.

OK, it’s over. Now we’ll hear the bobbleheads talk about how McCain was so much better this time and probably won the debate.

Rachel Maddow: McCain was swinging and missing. Obama seemed more relaxed than McCain.

Pat Buchanan thinks McCain won the debate. Big surprise.

Update: The CNN quickie poll is coming through — Obama won.

other live blog

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For those of you who enjoyed the live-blogging of the veep debate last week, the Mahablog tech/design team (that’d be me) will be live-blogging the debate over at my pad (here). It’s just me and the cat tonight, so I can’t guarantee it will be as entertaining.

The Base, Debased

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Dana Milbank provides an up-close-and-personal look at Palin-McCain supporters:

In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media.” At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”

Palin’s hatespeech doesn’t always work:

The angry GOP vice presidential nominee even found a way to blame the market decline on the yet-to-be-enacted tax policies of the yet-to-be-elected Obama.

“If you turn on the news tonight when you get home, you’re gonna see that, yah, this is another woeful day in the market, and the other side just doesn’t understand — no!” she said at an afternoon fundraiser at the home of mutual fund giant Jack Donahue. “Especially in a time like this, you don’t propose to increase taxes. The phoniest claim in a campaign that’s full of them is that Barack Obama is going to cut your taxes.”

Of course, Obama never promised to cut taxes for people at $10,000-a-plate lunches in air-conditioned tents on waterfront compounds. And the crowd — among them New York Jets owner Woody Johnson — reacted without applause to Palin’s Joe Six-Pack lines. After they didn’t strike up the usual “Drill, baby, drill” or “USA” chants, Palin, rattled, read hurriedly through the rest of her speech.

Josh Marshall reports Palin-McCain rally attendees yelling “terrorist!” and “kill him!” at mention of Obama’s name, “though it’s not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn’t seem to matter.”

“These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin,” Josh says. Yes. As are the mobs who support them.