browser life

I can sum up last night's debate in one word: feisty!

John McCain's back was up against the wall, and it showed. He decided to take Sarah Palin's debate tactic of appealing to the average American, in this case, mentioning several times a dude who became known as Joe the Plumber, who couldn't buy the company he'd worked at for several years. Thing is, as a (lower) middle class American, I couldn't relate, because if I had the income of a plumber, I'd consider myself rich.

McCain's other tactic seemed to be to goad Obama into an angry outburst, which didn't happen. CNN showed a split screen of the candidates so you could see each one's reaction's to what the other was saying, and every time McCain would say something inflammatory, Obama would just grin even wider. Occasionally, Obama even laughed softly, which appeared to seriously piss McCain off.

This debate had both candidates sitting at the same desk, and oddly, it worked better than the town hall meeting. Unlike last time, the moderator was firmly in control of the questioning and follow up and moving on to the next topic. And the questions were pointed and got right to the heart of what most Americans have been griping about the last few months.

McCain did get one really good zinger in on Obama. He said something along the lines of, "I am not President Bush, and if you want to run against him, you should have done that four years ago". Too funny.

Obama had the perfect opportunity to launch an attack on Palin when asked why his VP pick was better than McCain's, and he wisely refrained from doing so. He instead focused on building up Biden, something he really needed to do because a fair number of voters have been unhappy with the notion of Biden being second in command. Don't know if he sufficiently silenced the Biden critics, but it was worth a shot.

When asked whether Obama's stance on abortion would affect his choice of Supreme Court nominees (an excellent question, by the way), Obama launched into a rather in-depth speech about his personal feelings about abortion that may have been TMI. You could feel the uncomfortable tension in the room which grew greater the more he talked. I felt two ways about it: I know Roe v. Wade may very well be at stake, so I was relieved he said something, but even I got a bit tense as I watched him flounder on and on.

The low point of the evening? When McCain defended the people at his rallies that were saying things about Obama like "he's a terrorist" and "kill him". Denying that these things happened is ridiculous; I saw videos of it myself. I feel it is dangerous and inexcusable to side with racists, even if they are joking about killing Obama (a couple of them could be serious for all we know).

One thing I noticed about McCain's health care strategy: never once has he mentioned those with pre-existing conditions that won't be able to get coverage even with a $5000 credit. I guess someone who survived breast cancer ten years ago is SOL (I know people in this situation). Obama's got an excellent idea removing pre-existing condition exclusions, even if you don't agree with the rest of his plan (which I do).

One thing that concerns me about Obama during these debates: despite being asked three times, he never has stated clearly what spending would have to be trimmed during his administration. With the current financial debacle, we can't possibly fund absolutely everything. Being vague on this subject has only added fuel to McCain's accusations that Obama is going to spend us to death.

But I'm not sure I want Joe the Plummer handling the economy, either. I suspect he's out having a beer with Joe Six Pack at this very moment, heh heh.