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First some of the soft stuff: I watched the debate on MSNBC, which had
the candidates in split screen most of the time. I think I had a more
favorable opinion of McCain's performance (as opposed to his points)
than did those who watched him avoid looking at Obama all night. When I
saw it from a different angle in later footage, it definitely gave me a
more negative impression of McCain. Definitely reminiscent of the Kennedy/Nixon debate, not that I was alive to see that in real time.
Watching that video clip I am struck by something: McCain's performance may
actually have been worse than Nixon, who appeared gracious and
acknowledged the areas in which he and Kennedy agreed. Anyone who
watched the debate last night, from any angle, couldn't miss McCain's
dismissiveness and attempts to diminish Obama's opinions as naivete.
Nixon actually looked quite hail and hearty in comparison to McCain's
sideways snicker, hunched back and continual blinking. (Yes, I realize
some of these things may have been due to his long-ago injuries, I'm
just describing how it looked.) And nobody can fail to notice that the
stars come out when Obama smiles, which he did often, and spectacularly.
But on to the issues. McCain looked pleased to pull this rabbit out of his
hat, although it's been in his economic plan all along - a fact the
press doesn't seem to acknowledge:
MCCAIN: How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs.
LEHRER: Spending freeze?
MCCAIN:
I think we ought to seriously consider with the exceptions the caring
of veterans national defense and several other vital issues.
Yes, Jim Lehrer, a spending freeze. A one-year freeze on all discretionary
spending with the exception of "caring of veterans"? and national
defense. This has been in McCain's platform for some time, and the
thought of someone that erratic and arbitrary determining what is and
isn't "vital" makes my blood run cold.
I thought Obama had a
great response, one which showed he, at least, had read his opponent's
platform and was waiting for this to come up:
OBAMA:
The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you
need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that
are under funded. I went to increase early childhood education and the
notion that we should freeze that when there may be, for example, this
Medicare subsidy doesn't make sense.Let me tell you another
place to look for some savings. We are currently spending $10 billion a
month in Iraq when they have a $79 billion surplus. It seems to me that
if we're going to be strong at home as well as strong abroad, that we
have to look at bringing that war to a close.
Great response, yes? Well, I guess it depends on your opinion of how the Iraq
war should play out, although that hatchet remark was a great
soundbite. But notice something else that cropped up there: Early
Childhood Education.
Remember a couple of days ago, that post about McCain's pre-k plan?
Why does the Obama campaign not seize upon this as an example of the
extremely poor effort of the McCain campaign on domestic issues? I
don't know, but they should. If I were able to whisper into Obama's
ear, I'd have told him to take that example and run with it - not just
as a program that he wants, but as an example of why McCain cannot be
trusted to make these huge budgetary cuts. Hopefully, future debates
will provide more of an opportunity to corner McCain on some of these
domestic issues.
Another telling soundbite, which everyone seems to have missed:
And
have no doubt about the magnitude of this crisis. And we're not talking
about failure of institutions on Wall Street. We're talking about
failures on Main Street, and people who will lose their jobs, and their
credits, and their homes...
OK, losing jobs, homes....credits? What? It may be a minor thing, but I think it is a little bit of a "tell" - I think it has been a long time since John
McCain has had to worry about his credit (if ever) but most of us just
would never make an error like that, since "credit" tends to rule our
lives, but "credits" are something that rolls down the screen at the
end of a movie. Credit does not have a plural, it is not any one thing
but rather the big wheel in the sky that grinds us all into dust....Not
to get too macro-cosmic, there.
Opinion on the debate seems to
vary from "not a game changer" to "McCain won on points" to "Obama in a
landslide" and only time will tell. But let's not forget to listen to
what the candidates say,
