Yawn, generic "litmus test" answer from Dubya (from both candidates)

SI

nice double-speak from McCain: he wouldn't impose a litmus test but he doesn't think that someone who supported roe v. wade would meet his qualifications?

isn't that a litmus test?

Obama has an answer for every attack McCain has made - it's beautiful

It's odd- McCain lets Obama run every question. He takes a quick hit but then Obama gets to frame the entire issue and McCain has no comeback. It's horrible debate strategy from McCain.

SI

I'm wondering if other channels are using a split screen. I'm watching NBC and it is showing both of them at the same time. I'm guessing radio listeners and folks that can only see the speaker (without the listeners reaction) may have a much different view of this debate.

Why hasn't McCain brought up that he had an adopted child sooner? That seems like a good point for him.

SI

regarding format though - i think the format of this debate has been the best of the 3, notwithstanding the fact that the moderator keeps letting McCain interrupt Obama

That is pretty much how I'm hearing things, too.

One thing I'm liking from Obama this debate is that he's not afraid to give McCain a complement.

Why would he be afraid? About the only thing that could sink him at this point would be if he decided to re-create PDiddy's anti-Alaska, anti_palin rant. Obama is running out hte clock at this point. Complementing McCain is like a run for 4 yards.

Why is Sarah Palin an expert on autism? I thought her baby had down syndrome. Did John McCain forget that?

Yes, let's blame the teachers for everything. Clearly it's their fault.

bolded and fixed to my opinion

oooh - good point

Ok, so who was the best moderator?

SI

I would say this was definitely the best format of the debate. The questions intrigued me more and they seemed to actually talk to each other a little more.

So I'd have to give Bob the vote for best moderator, but probably due to the format and the fact that the other moderators were terrible.

'Media is keying in on the whole "I'm not George W. Bush line" by McCain. Maybe he'll get a bump, because they've got to make it closer any way they can or they'll run out of stuff to talk about.

Joe is now the second most famous plumber in world history behind Mario.

I agree that this moderator was the best of the three, the lady who moderated the second debate was the worst. She couldn't press either candidate because the right-wingers would bitch about her writing a book about Obama if she ever asked McCain a follow up question.

Now it's thirty minutes of talking heads before the snap polls come out.

It would be hard to ask McCain a follow up considering she moderated the VP debate. But I do agree that tonight's guy was good. It helped that the rules were better structured than the last debate, which was part of the reason why Brokow looked so bad.

So, back to Joe... if he's paying more taxes under the Obama tax plan, that means he's pulling down more than a quarter million in "small business" income. Presumably a good deal more than a quarter million, in order for the new higher tax bracket to matter much. Is a guy making, say, a half million dollars a year really the best pivot point for tax policy in this country now?

I thought it was McCain's best night, but I can't imagine it was enough to change the election. As long as Obama is mistake free he should win in three weeks.

this was the point i was making at the time with foz and my sister

Oops. For some reason I got her and Brokaw mixed up. They're so alike y'know?

Amen. I have argued extensively with a friend about this. He claims that he and his girlfriend have moved in together and they make $250k, and they are living paycheck to paycheck. Really? Well, the first truth to slip out is that she has another property that she is renting out. He argues that he has a larger mortgage than I do (My wife and I have a high combined income, but not that high). I would say that he has chosen to live that way. I live in an area with one of the highest costs of living int he country. I live in the heart of the city.

First of all, I think there's more to it than he is saying. Regardless, that is also gross salary. Once you add in deductions due to mortgage, retirement funds, etc, he should be well below the $250k. A $250k taxable income is closer to $300k, particularly for a couple. You can put $15.5k into your 401k each year, a $1600 mortgage gives you roughly a $10k deduction. The list goes on, but my point is this: $250k in taxable income is a lot of money.

CNN is awesome. Immediately after the debate almost everyone was saying McCain was the winner and now that the instant poll came out heavily in favor of Obama they're all explaining why McCain lost without even bothering to mention that just ten minutes ago they said he won.

Someone got a lot of free advertising tonight and it was not Joe the Plumber from Ohio.

Joe the Plumber

I hope this guy doesn't have a bandwidth limit.

CBS poll of undecided voters:

Who won the debate?

McCain (R) 22
Obama (D) 53

Shares your values

Obama, Before the debate: 54
Obama, After the debate: 63

McCain, Before the debate: 53
McCain, After the debate: 56


CNN poll of voters who watched debate:

Who won the debate?

McCain (R) 31
Obama (D) 58

Favorable/Unfavorable

Obama, before debate: 63/35
Obama, after debate: 66/33

McCain, before debate: 51/45
McCain, after debate: 49/49

yeah - i don't know what they were smoking in those first few minutes.

then again, in their defense, in the first half-hour they went pretty heavily to the partisan folks - bill bennett and alex castellanos (or whatever his name is) could be pretty reasonably expected to be rah-rah on McCain, and the others were a bit more reserved

wow - impressive spin by Rick Davis (McCain campaign manager)

I was able to stream the debate, but none of the aftermath, and I don't have cable. What'd he say?

McCain had this debate if not for Lewis and Ayers. He was winning on policy at that point in the debate, why would he go personal negative on the back of a question begging candidates to push behind the negative???

CNN poll had voters calling McCain more negative in the debate 88% - 7% !!!

FOX News contributers weight in:


Sounds pretty good for Obama. When Cal Thomas calls it a tie...

Wow, reading this thread for republicans is like being a Yankee fan watching a Red Sox-Yankee game in a Boston bar ;)

I'm not sure who won, or that it matters. I think McCain is what he is, about 40% of what I am interested in while Obama is about 30%. I can't see this debate changing many minds, so it appears that Obama should have pretty clear sailing from here on in. Maybe it's just facing reality, but I'm not all that concerned about an Obama presidency. Either he comes in and makes a bunch of progress and helps for the next 2-4 years - in which case I will gladly vote for his re-election; or it doesn't turn out as well and (with the "centrist" McCain's loss) it opens the door for a more fiscal conservative in 2012 (plus some congress pickups in 2010). So, I'm actually beginning to drink a little of the Obama kool-aid :eek: I atleast feel like he believes what he is saying and buys into these plans. McCain looks like someone reading homework written for him by someone else but passing it off as his own.

That said, I do want to make a few quick points:

If you guys would have put as much reading into Palin's record/history as you did to troopergate, you would know that her sister has a child with autism. Plus, she supported and signed a bill to triple funding for students with autism and other special needs (going to $73,840 in fiscal 2011, from the current $26,900 per student in fiscal 2008).

According to the government standards, a large number of small businesses make over $250K. For some reason, people think of small businesses being Bob's Landscaping or Karen's tax preparation service (which is how Obama has framed it). When, in reality, you have a majority of agriculture, manufacturing, construction, food and apparel small businesses employing between 50 and 500 people and some bringing in millions of dollars.

Electronic Code of Federal Regulations:

Not to disparage those business like mine that make less than 250K, but we don't employ many (if any) people and aren't the big impact on improving the economy. The ones in the list above with 100-200 employees are the ones we need to look out for. These are the small businesses that employ workers and fuel our economy and will probably face layoffs if their economic situation changes through a more burdensome tax policy. Now, just simple math shows that if you employ 100 people (even making just 30K), you better be bringing in more 250K. It's a shame McCain is unable to make that point, but it's probably better that he doesn't at this point. I can't see four years of McCain working out all that well for this country so I say let's give Obama a shot and see what happens. My hope is that he will abandon the middle class tax cut and the cap gains increase and also spare the small business the added tax hike. In the end, that's probably best. Don't raise (or cut) anyone taxes and survive this next 16 months.

I am officially voting today (Los Angeles County, California overseas absentee voter.)

I probably shouldn't say this to a largely Democrat group here but DON'T FORGET TO VOTE.

OT: Beyond voting for President and a couple of judges, I am starting to see how "out-of-control" spending works. I was asked to vote on 10-15 state initiatives that each cost anywhere from $500 million a year to a billion a year. But I wasn't asked to vote for anything in order to rescind programs in place hoping to save the state $500 million a year or $1 billion a year. The initiatives seemed decent enough, but it gave the impression that money grew on trees...

The only CA initiative I have strong views on is Prop 8 - I really hope it fails. Voting to deny people rights because you find it "icky" is idiotic at best, and downright cruel at most.

Yeah. I turned over there when they were talking to their panel of undecided voters. Only a handful of them had made a desicion after the debate, but they all went to Obama. I think whoever pointed out how Obama looked more "presidential" hit it on the head. I think it is how these debates have helped him the most. Being a good public speaker helps a presidential candidate, but showing cool under fire like in a debate wins you many more points. Obama definitely stayed cool.

I'm not sure what you are talking about?

That's a really good point. I can imagine a world in which the Joe the Plumber bit gets a lot of play, and I can also see it getting dismissed fairly quickly because of what you say here. McCain was obviously trying to scare people with his "share the wealth" line, but that scare tactic won't work with the middle class.

I also noticed like most of you that McCain won the early part of the debate, but as it wore on, just looked testy and angry. The McCain that the polls have shown people don't like. I thought Obama was especially strong during the abortion question, when McCain was trying to paint Obama as "pro-abortion" and also dismissed the claims of the health of the mother by actually using finger-quote marks around the term... that did not play well at all, I'm sure.

YouTube - McCain: Health of Mother Is for Pro-Abortion Extremists

For any of you that missed that.

McCain has giant balls.

Maybe they should make the debates radio-only. But then CNN's army of analysts would be out on the street, there's so many of them the unemployment rate would go up another half a percent.

Well, I used boxing analogies to describe the first debate (10-10 draw), and the second debate (10-9 Obama). So why get in the way of a good thing?

To extend the analogy even further, Obama came into this final debate like it was the 14th round of a 15 round fight, and he had won 9 of the first 13 rounds. Quite obviously, McCain needs a knockout blow to win. So this debate was McCain throwing wild punch after wild punch, trying to land that knockout blow.

There was a couple good lines (the prepared "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have done so four years ago" for example, although I can see that turned into a Pro-Obama point where that soundbite gets followed up with a McCain agreed with Bush 90% of the time)... But most of the wild swings were just that, wild swings that missed completely.

Obama didn't land any real huge shots of his own.. but that's ok.. he didn't need to. He just jabbed and moved throughout the whole round (debate). I think this is a 10-9 round again for Obama, because the mental image of the round is McCain chasing after Obama and throwing the wild punches that missed. That is, this debate will be remembered for what McCain DIDN'T do.. rather than what Obama DID do.

Heh, I just saw another Biden gaffe on the stump.

“John’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S”

He's a maverick! A maverick I say! The problem with the whole campaign, McCain doesn't know how to present a cohesive message and his campaign team is such a hodgepodge of just right of center and super right wingers that its gotta be hard for him to get cohesiveness from them.

Its the carnival house of horrors of presidential campaigns.

I'm hard pressed to think this debate will actually be remembered for any length of time at all.

(I'd put a little winky smiley there 'cause I'm not really busting your chops but I'm also serious enough that I don't want to use the emoticon)

Sorry, bad choice of words there Jon. Would it have been better if i had said "This debate will be judged more on what McCain DIDN'T do rather then what Obama DID do?"

Ask and you shall receive.

McCain didn't explain his point fully though. I've heard other people say that he's been in so many town halls with Republicans that he assumes the general population knows what he means. Basically the argument is that "health of the mother" has been streached so far that anything is covered. "Mental anguish" is considered "health of the mother".

--

I think on substance McCain wins (barely, did much better early on), but on style McCain was awful. It's very much like a Nixon/Kennedy TV debate. I'm sure those listening thought McCain did a very good job, while those watching thought he was awful.

Is either side of the abortion debate an argument that can win undecideds? I thought it was odd to spend so much time on an issue that doesn't have a lot of relevance to undecideds.

With issues like "health" in quotes, I think Senator McCain (and, presumably, his handlers and prep helpers) are really missing their audience. You can make a speech to die-hard supporters, committed anti-abortion types, and use that kind of language. Among that crowd, you can speak a sort of code language -- when pretty much everyone in the room knows that the other side (those "pro-abortion" folks we hear about) try to define terms like "health" (in quotes) very loosely as an end run around sensible restrictions on abortion availability. This sort of code language works pretty well with a confirmed audience, where everyone knows that you are making a jab at the wackos on the other side... but it doesn't work at all in a general audience debate setting, where people are watching from a very wide range of perspectives.

I think he made comparable mistakes in other places, too -- the one that comes to mind for me is his awkwardly dismissive tone about safety for nuclear power. Among true believers, he might be able to make Senator Obama sound cowardly or meek on the topic, but with a general audience, suggesting that your opponent is wrong on an issue (especially one as unsettling to so many people as nukes) because he's worried about public safety just isn't a winner unless it's delivered perfectly (IMO, something closer to the way in which he said things like "he's eloquent, but you have to listen carefully to what he says, my friends" last night). McCain, again, delivered that odd jab only very briefly and in a manner more fitting an audience of the converted, rather than a general audience.

I honestly don't know where this fits along the continuum of "debate points" versus "stuff that matters to real people" but seeing this pattern really coalesced with me last night after thinking a bit about the abortion back-and-forth.

I think the main issue with a back-and-forth on abortion is to position yourself as not totally out of touch. While there are diehards on both sides, there are an awful lot of people who are fairly ambivalent about the issue, I think, and who dislike people on either fringe. The pro-life crowd tends to score when they focus on things like partial-birth abortion and things like "a 15 year old girl needs a note from mom to get an aspirin, but not to get an abortion." The pro-choice crowd tends to score when they focus on the other side prosecuting abortion as murder, and when they convert the issue into an abridgement of the reasonable treatment of women in society, I think.

The best example of this being turned to an effective argument in recent politics was when Bill Clinton coined the phrase "safe, legal, and rare." That is probably the best, and simplest, synthesis of what the middle majority of people in this country want as an abortion policy, but more importantly it keeps you from looking like you are totally out of touch on the issue the way that both sides of the deeply entrenched can come off.