In the first debate, pundits said, since it was on foreign policy, it was in McCain’s favor. They were wrong. For the second debate, it was a townhall meeting, a Mccain specialty, he’ll do well. Again they were wrong. Now before everyone thinks I’m not going to critisize Obama, I will. I thought he could have done better. There were a couple of questions I thought he could have answered with more specifics, and managed to avoid another couple of others. Still, with that in mind, McCain was completely off his game.
His biggest gaffe, which will be replayed ad nauseam is referring to Obama, as “that guy”, giving a little jab in Barack’s direction, without so much as a glance. At the end of the debate, he avoided a handshake and then left the building less than 5 minutes after the debate, while Barack stayed for more than half an hour.
John, when you have a room of undecideds, it’s bad form to leave. Perhaps, he knows he’s the captain of a sinking ship and is only going through the motions of being in control, until Nov 4th when he can finally retire to one of his 7 homes and drive one of his 13 cars. When someone says, (as McCain did), he would freeze government spending and then suggests the government buy up the foreclosures, all you can do is go, WTF? Has he been taking speech lessons from Nikita? McCain really needed to overwhelmingly win this debate in order to stay in the race.
- But he didn’t. In fact, given his performance, he didn’t even seem to care. Well, if he doesn’t care, then why should we?
Scott Colbert 
McCain is faltering. That’s all to the good if we want to see Obama get elected. And I am voting for him.
I don’t necessarily trust either candidate, but I have no desire to see McCain in office. My vote’s for Obama.
John McCain = Herbert Hoover. Expect a major depression within the first year of his administration. It may still be inevitable, but it will be much worse with him in the White House.
Not that Obama’s any FDR, but that’s not necessarily an altogether bad thing.
SirOtter,
I see that, or something similar happening, no matter who wins. The economic meltdown, goes deep, and I don’t think we’ve seen the worst yet.
I’m glad that Obama is not FDR, things are much more complicated now. Back then we could still do isolationist things economically that we cannot do with our economy wrapped so tightly around all the other countries.
And let’s remember that the depression was a worldwide phenomena also.
Hitler came to power in Germany because of the economy. The Treaty of Versailles drove their country into deep poverty, making war inevitable.
My worry is that Obama will fall victim to the same overwhelmingly bad economy that so adversely affected Carter’s administration and Grover Cleveland’s second (non-consecutive) term. I hope he’s ready to inherit a major shitstorm, just as Carter did from Ford and Cleveland did from Benjamin Harrison. Republicans frequently leave an economic shambles behind them, and then complain if the Democrats that follow can’t fix their fuck-ups right out of the gate.
he said “that one”
To which some people’s mothers would’ve responded: “That one? Who’s that? The cat’s mother?”
Which always cracked me up.
I would’ve been very happy with McCain in 2000. Now he’s looking more and more like an embarrassment who was just barely preferable to the other twisted little men who were running for the Republican nomination.
Well, even when the Democrats do fix the economy, as Clinton did, Repubs will either a)denigrate it, or b) try and take claim of it. I have no doubt, Obama will have a shitstorm to deal with. The difference between him and Cart/Cleveland is his intellect. Carter, for all his wonderful work after his 4 years, was really a bad President. No one would ever accuse him of being very smart. Wise, perhaps, but he didn’t have a good grasp of economics.
I’m not quite in Mike’s camp, as I do trust Obama more than I do McCain; but only after doing a lot of research on who he is, and what he’s done. His focus on issues, despite the mud being hurled is pretty damn impressiv. Imagine the legion 100 fold attacking you all day every day; I’d have to bust out a shotgun or something; but Obama just sticks to his message, as he knows that’s what’s really important.
Palin though, is another reason I’ve voted for Obama. Yes, I said voted; I got my early voter form today; I don’t want anyone who believes in the rapture and thinks Jesus will be coming again in her lifetime, anywhere near the white house. Her brand of Christianity is just fucking scary.
And Kim I can agree with that to an extent. I wasn’t as enthused about Gore (and honestly, less so about Kerry), but the current stable of Republicans are scarier than anything in recent memory. McCain sold his Maverick status to get to the White House, and he’s pissed away his opportunity.
I watched some pieces of the debate again tonight, and compared them to some video of him on the campaign trail prior to his nomination and it’s a stark and ominous difference. I think the nonstop campaigning is catching up with him. He doesn’t look well, he’s been very disrespectful, and really seems to know he’s on a losing ticket, and waiting for the election to be over.
Carter’s main difficulty was that he tried too hard to be an outsider. He brought a lot of well-intentioned people with him from his home state who did not understand how things were done in Washington.
However, I think that part of what destroyed Carter’s chances was the bungled attempt to rescue the American Embassy hostages.
That Obama is the more trustworthy candidate, I’ll concede that. I’m just not very trusting of politicians in general. Based on what I’ve looked up he seems a very genuine person, but the question is what will happen if he does take the office? How will it change him?
To be honest, I think we dems are just not as loyal as republicans. I’m being serious. When dems saw a very nice, well-intentioned President with the kind of policies we agree with, but whose presidency was completely ineffective, we turned on him and voted Republican. When republicans look at this failed presidency, they still rally around the dude and the party. That’s some loyalty, I got to say. I don’t think it’s wise, but it’s loyal.
And that Mike, is the question. We’ve seen how power corrupted McCain, I’d like to think Obama has more integrity, but we have to wait and see. It’s still a chance I’m willing to take.
Kim, and you’re right, Dems traditionally seem to abandon anyone who fails. Repubs, fly in the face of facts; and I think there needs to be balance. A middle ground so to speak. I don’t think it’ll ever happen, but it’s a nice ideal to have.