BlogHer - Notes from the Presidential Debate - Comments

Um, yeah

yellowbird — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:14:02 -0500

Thanks for the name calling, by the way.

If you vote for McCain, I would have to say you are making an uneducated choice. If you choose to educate yourself you would see that McCain is only going to be a continuation of the Bush Admin. Unless you are stupid, who would want that? Not so hard to understand, is it?

The Debate

Carrie Blankenship — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:58:17 -0500

I was in Palm Springs when the debate was aired live and walked right by those old geezers in the lobby watching it with my cocktail in hand (it was happy hour) and did not even blink!

I really shocked myself. But thank you Lindsay, for your thoughtful analysis - this definitely gives me more to think of when I get the time to watch it, even though my mind is made up. I think it is still incredibly important to see how the candidates answer and respond to questions.

http://www.stopscreamingimdriving.com

Being old doesn't make you

shelleyp — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:34:34 -0500

Being old doesn't make you wise. My dear long dead uncle had a favorite plaque in German that read, "We get too soon old, and too late smart."

You're aware of course, which is why you wrote your opaque posting, of the article stating that seniors favor McCain, like the younger folks favor Obama.

Luckily, the majority of us middle aged folk also support Obama. And interestingly enough, the seniors loath Palin, but like Biden. I wouldn't count on the seniors just yet.

I wonder how much the seniors will continue to like McCain when they hear about their Medicare being chopped to pieces. Now this is information that will probably come out in the next debate.

Too bad, too, they don't remember that the Republican party was the one in charge the last 8 years and look how crappy things are now. Or about a war more of them dislike. No, they're "afraid" of someone younger, though Obama will have good company in the "young" category: John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton.

The Obama retirement fund

KeegsMom — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:55:40 -0500

Er, Norma156, how do you know that the Obamas don't have a 401K or some other retirement fund, most of which are stock market based? I mean, how would you even know if they own stocks or have other direct investments??

That's a bizarre claim.

I, too, am in disbelief that anyone following the election, with these candidates being out in the spotlight now for what seems like an eternity, is still undecided. The candidates -- and the parties -- are like apples and oranges.

Simple question: do you think the Republicans have done a good job leading the country the last 8 years?

KeegsMom blogs at:
KIDSFLIX
http://kidsflix.blogspot.com

For our children......

MegV — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:41:29 -0500

Don't do it. You have seen what has happened on the Republican watch. What's wrong with giving someone else a shot? It can't get much worse can it? If anyone thinks they're getting a tax break in the next 8 years, they're crazy. Do they really think the American public is stupid enough to believe they can pay for a neverending war in Iraq and Afghanistan and an $850 million bailout and not pay more taxes?

We need to take care of our children (health and education) and improve our image with the rest of the world (Mr.Bush doesn't care).

With the money we have spent on the war in Iraq alone we cold have funded world class public schools, rebuilt/repaired our highways, and have maybe, found a cure for cancer. (every week in Iraq we spend as much money as we allocate each year for cancer research in this country )

Don't even get me started on reproductive rights. (You don't have a uterus? You don't have a say!!!...my opinion)

I hope as a mother you would not even consider this evil war monger for president of our country. Your children's welfare depends on it.

McCain=Buffet AND Whitman

SuburbanTurmoil — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:57:57 -0500

No mix up. Read the transcripts. Warren Buffet was the first name McCain said. I'm not surprised he threw a Republican out there as well.

Heh.

SuburbanTurmoil — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:55:59 -0500

Heh.

Distraction Issues

Paddycake — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:34:58 -0500

Thats what I like to call them. Politicians don't really care about reproductive rights that is just a tool to seduce votes, same with gay rights, healthcare etc...

You are right in talking about the stock market.

I'm losing money big time in my pension account, hopefully It will recover by the time

I'm ready to retire, I feel really sad for those who are planning to retire right now.

Who's gonna be the best presidential choice for them? You know the older people.

The wiser people. Has anyone seen any polls on who seniors are voting for?

So a vote not for Obama is an uneducated choice?

Maria0305 — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:08:16 -0500

I'm voting for Obama too, definitely, but you sound like a complete nut. I'm assuming you're a troll like I've been noticing scattered around the political posts here on BlogHer.

- Maria

http://immoralmatriarch.com

I completely agree, ShelleyP.

Maria0305 — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:05:34 -0500

Although I'm still not sure what the Obamas not having money in the stock market has to do with anything. I don't personally have any money in the stock market either, but I'm damn sure feeling the strain of the economy as a whole.

http://immoralmatriarch.com

I'm sorry you find

shelleyp — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:41:54 -0500

I'm sorry you find reproductive rights and health care to be old and irrelevant, but a lot of us don't.

The most important decision a President makes is who he or she appoints to the Supreme Court. This is more important than, yes, even the current economic meltdown. I know for a fact that Obama will appoint a justice to the court that will ensure balance, in support of a living Constitution, while McCain will side with the Federalist Society, which believes that the Constitution should be interpreted in light of white slave-owning men.

Frankly, there is only so much a President can do about the economy, other than project hope. I don't see that McCain projects anything but small-minded anger, and vague "I can fix that" assertions without any details. Oh, an chaotic responses to crises, including his recent mortgage suggestion, which has all economists appalled.

As for the current situation, McCain favors deregulation, a major factor in today's meltdown. He's also still stuck in Reagon Economics, which we now know does not work. He favors tax breaks for the wealthy and the corporate, and I don't know about anyone else, but I'm tired of welfare for the rich.

As for Obama not having any investment in the stock market...sigh. It's true, he may not be as rich as McCain. I guess condemning Obama because he doesn't have any stockmarket investments is a change from the Ayers stuff, but not much. I don't have investments in the stock market but I understand how the current situation could have negative impact on me and others like me. Your assumption that one has to have stock market investments in order to "understand" the current situation is, frankly (since we're being blunt), simplistic. Even more than a little elitist.

So all in all, you'll have to excuse us if we continue to look for a President for the future, rather than a relict from the past. A well rounded President, able to deal with today's problems, and tomorrow's.

I find it absolutely

Norma156 — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:37:07 -0500

I find it absolutely fascinating that a thoughtful blog on the debate where the writer is still an uncommitted voter, generated, as of this count, eighty comments from this community.

Most, if not all, of the comments are vehemently pro-Obama with the exception of a post by an alleged eighty-year old. However, writers doubt she is authentic. (I don't know how that determination is made. Interent voodoo? I just don't know.)

I also find it fascinating that most of the posts are concerned with what I consider the "old" issues and I mean old in the sense of two weeks old. To me, in the context of a global financial meltdown, gender, reproductive rights, and healthcare are old issues and irrelevant.

Wait. Don't jump on me yet. Did you notice what the market did today? It was down 600 points. Have you noticed what's disappeared from your 401K accounts? Wealth by the trillions is disappearing.

In this country we've had the luxury over the last three decades (since the Reagan Revolution to be precise) to pick and choose political alliances over relatively narrow issues. For example, witness the pro-choice post above where the writer says she would never, ever vote for anyone who threatened her reproductive rights.

Would she feel the same way if her candidate, while supporting reproductive rights, brings down the global financial system and plunges us into a depression?

Does anyone really think either McCain or Obama is going to be able to deliver on healthcare promises? Why even argue about it? It's moot, ladies. Ain't gonna happen. To me, watching the debate was an exercise in total irrelevance.

We are on the brink of a financial catastrophe the likes of which most of us have never lived through. This is not hyberbole.

It seems to me, the real question for Suburbanturmoil and for all of us, is which candidate has the brains and balls to face up to the mess and make some hard choices.

I don't think McCain understands the economy very well, but I know Obama doesn't. Did you know that he and Michelle don't have a single dollar in the stock market? He is definitely not feeling our pain.

Okay, that may have been a little snide, but the point remains. He proposes to increase taxes on income, capital, and social security. He proposes increased corporate tax rates. This is precisely the prescription we don't need at this time. We know this.

I've enjoyed reading these posts, although today a few minutes after the market closed, they seem a little old-fashioned.

Ooops, my bad!

KeegsMom — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:40:24 -0500

You are right, i just refreshed my memory via YouTube. Apologies, Suburban Turmoil!

KeegsMom blogs at
KIDSFLIX
http://kidsflix.blogspot.com

Suburban Turmoil had it right, sort of

Denise — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:34:17 -0500

McCain answered the question first and his first response was that he liked Warren Buffet. His second mention was Meg Whitman.

Then when it was Obama's turn, he too said Buffet.

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings

McCain=Whitman, Obama=Buffet

KeegsMom — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:29:39 -0500

You're right, i meant to mention that, too.... I think SubTurmoil got 'em mixed up...

I would think the Treas Sec'ty would need to have some major banking or financial industry experience, no? Not just be a good businessperson.

But what do I know.

KeegsMom blogs at
KIDSFLIX
http://kidsflix.blogspot.com

Notes from the Presidential Debate

SuburbanTurmoil — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:22:25 -0500

Neither heavy rain nor three thousand members of the media all crowded into one large tent nor the realization that Greta Van Susteren can't possibly weigh more than 90 pounds could keep me from last night's presidential debate.

Along with 2,990 other journalists (only ten were allowed into the debate auditorium), I was herded into the "Media Filing Center," where politicians and pundits stopped to give interviews and reporters from MSNBC, FOX and CNN pontificated live on the air. I walked around for a while and watched all that was going on, then found a seat and settled in to watch the debate.

I began the night expecting to be swayed toward one candidate. I was very surprised that it was the other candidate who appealed to me in the end.

Obviously, I haven't had time to fact check either candidates' claims, and I'll do more research before I make a final decision. But here were my impressions from last night:

Right off the bat, Obama struck me as giving some very vague answers. I often felt like he wasn't answering the questions at all (and was sometimes not even making any pretense of attempting to), but was instead reciting words and phrases ("middle class" comes to mind) that he had been practicing for months. I thought McCain, though also vague at times, did a better job overall of specifically answering the questions that were posed to him. He presented a much clearer picture of his ideas to me than Obama.

I liked that McCain named Warren Buffet as a potential Treasury Secratary, even after acknowledging that Buffet is an Obama supporter (and I think Warren Buffet is brilliant). We need a president who's wise enough to choose the best man or woman for the job, as opposed to his most ardent supporters.

On that note, McCain's consistent mentions of his bipartisan record really appealed to me. One of the things I like about McCain is that he's not the most popular member of the Republican Party. I saw this as a good thing, since I don't identify with the image of the typical Republican. He does have a reputation for being far more moderate than many of his Republican peers, and for working with Democrats. Bipartisanship is important to me in a president, it's rare in Washington, and I value it as a voter. I'm now wondering if it's true that Obama has never gone against his party leaders on any major issue, as McCain claimed several times.

I felt that both candidates were promising far more than they could possibly deliver. At times, they spoke of our faltering economy and pledged to get tough by freezing spending and cutting programs out of the budget that aren't working. Five minutes later, they were promising us tax cuts and health care refunds and new jobs and aid for Darfur and $15 billion a year to research ways in which we wouldn't have to depend on other countries for oil. I'm not so naive that I'm expecting our next president to save the economy and give me lots of new tax breaks at the same time. I don't want my taxes to go up, but that's about all I expect right now.

As far as actual plans, though, I couldn't help but be love McCain's proposal to double the child exemption on taxes, from $3500 per child to $7000 per child. That would be quite a big deal in this house. I had gone into the debate much more interested in Obama's tax plan than McCain's, but I came out of the debate really liking what McCain had to say about tax relief.

These are just a few thoughts I had. Of course, I was interested in their thoughts on foreign policy, energy, and the environment, but right now I think the economy is everyone's primary concern. My biggest concern about McCain is that he will put too much money and manpower into the war on Iraq. I don't really like either candidate's plan for the war; I'm still hovering somewhere between the two.

I realized even more last night that both candidates really are courting voters like me right now, middle class voters who aren't strictly tied to one party and haven't necessarily decided whom will get their votes, and I definitely got the impression that both of them were telling me what they thought I wanted to hear.

Well, McCain did tell me much of what I wanted to hear. Obama didn't. And the funny thing is that I went into it prepared to be absolutely bowled over by Obama. In fact, I was thinking yesterday afternoon that Obama would probably end up getting my vote. I was shocked at the end of the night to look through my notes and find that there wasn't one thing he said that really appealed to me, even though I had initially thought he would win my support. I certainly don't agree with McCain on everything. I don't think he'll make a perfect president. I may end up voting for him and later regretting it (*cough* George W. Bush, *cough*). But I think he may have a better handle on how to run the country.

I'm a little freaked out that I'm even writing these words. When I think of myself as a "Republican Voter," I think of people like Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Rush Limbaugh and Newt and I throw up in my mouth a little. I realize that a huge portion of my readership is pro-Obama (prObama?) and I expect some hand wringing to ensue over my thoughts. But I've opted to be honest here, and I will never be a diehard supporter of either candidate, so if you think you can change some of my opinions, by all means go ahead and try.

My next step will be researching both candidates' records at sites like Fact Check (although I've since learned that Obama used to be head of the foundation that runs Fact Check, which is worth noting), Sunlight Foundation, Politics Anew, and Expert Voter (thanks for the links, guys!). I realize I was subject to heavy, heavy spin last night and I want to find out what's really what.

Who appealed to you in last night's debate and why? I'd love to hear your opinions.