First Presidential Debate

Politics International Politics
1

[quote]40% of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. 22% thought John McCain won. 38% saw it as a draw.

68% of these voters think Obama would make the right decision
about the economy. 41% think McCain would.

49% of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. 55% think McCain would. [/quote]

I didn’t think either man did well with their presentation. McCain stiff and stilted (needs to work on his anecdotes, and presenting them. Also needs a “new” pen), and Obama smirking and interrupting (got a little too bothered by McCain’s remarks). But I think they stuck to their scripts and got their message out. McCain: I have a lot of friends (who are old - Ted Kennedy?), I have flown to a lot of places around the world (makes him an expert on every place he’s touched down?), I AM A MAVERICK, I will clean up the Republican Party and Washington, I was right on the surge, Ear marks and Pork are EVIL and they make people evil, Financial crisis is an extension of evil people in Washington (and yeah, Wall Street), I will cut taxes so corporations will stay in US and create jobs . . . . Obama: I will cut taxes for 95% Americans, I don’t believe in trickle down economics, we need more regulation and oversight on Wall Street, the war in Iraq was a mistake and now we’re paying for it in Afghanistan, we need a new energy policy (we can’t drill our way out of our energy problems), I will invest in education, and infrastructure, I did a lot of things as a Senator (yeah yeah), I have good judgment as shown by my record . . . .

2

I didn’t catch it live unfortunately as I was busy this morning, but it seems that neither candidate f’ed up too badly. But they didn’t do great either.

Maybe things will heat up for round 2…

3

Good testing of the waters debate.
I look forward to the VP debates as well as the series w/Mc & O.

I just hate the ‘commentators’ doing their ‘analysis’ after each one.
Heck, we have enough sense to know if they are BS’ing us or not.

And they usually are.

4

I guess one of the candidates, and I won’t say who, didn’t think it was ‘worth it’ to wear his lapel pin. I guess at least one of the candidates isn’t afraid to show his patriotism. I guess the other one thought it would be too much trouble. Why does he hate America?

5

Because he has larger aspirations. And any guy who could walk into the oval office right now and “fix” wall street, provide every citizen access to healthcare, and put an end to war–could surely become king o’ the world.

6

[quote=“housecat”]Because he has larger aspirations. And any guy who could walk into the oval office right now and “fix” wall street, provide every citizen access to healthcare, and put an end to war–could surely become king o’ the world.[/quote]Some people, including myself, were similarly optimistic about Tony Blair. It didn’t take long for us to become disillusioned.

I’m sure Obama’s a perfectly nice guy and all, but to put much faith in any politician is asking for a big let-down.

I think the best thing any government can do is try not to do too much evil, and try not to interfere too much. I don’t mean that there shouldn’t be a decent public health system, or that there shouldn’t be thoughtful spending on welfare and infrastructure. But politicians always feel they need grand plans and impressive short-term results in order to curry favour with people; and that’s when things go wrong.

7

America is run by the central bank, otherwise known as the “federal” reserve. Which puppet is sitting in the white house means very little.

8

Thought Obama won the opening, both were extremely unimpressive trying to dodge the crisis/fallout question, and McCain won the foreign policy section , based on:

a) Obama failed to hit McCain on Iraqi withdrawal date.
b) Anyone who has a reasonably sane foreign policy platform is going to lose an American debate.

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised to see Obama winning the opinion polls based on the feeling that John was too nasty to that nice young boy, and wouldn’t even look at him- on such things do the fate of the world depend.

9

PRINCETON, NJ – Barack Obama leads John McCain, 50% to 42% among registered voters in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday – just one point shy of his strongest showing of the year.

10

OpEd writer, Maureen Dowd’s take on the debates:

[quote]Given the past week, the debate should have been a cinch for Obama. But, just as in the primaries, he willfully refuses to accept what debates are about. It’s not a lecture hall; it’s a joust. It’s not how cerebral you are. It’s how visceral you are. You need memorable, sharp, forceful and witty lines.

Even when McCain sneered, “I don’t need any on-the-job training, I’m ready to go at it right now,” Obama didn’t directly respond, but veered off into a story about his father being from Kenya and how he got his name. (Thanks, Barack, we got that from your book. It’s great for a memoir, but not a debate.)

McCain kept painting Obama as naïve, and dangerous, insisting that he “doesn’t quite understand or doesn’t get it.”

Obama should have responded “Senator, I understand perfectly, I’m just saying you’re wrong.”

On the surge, he could have said that McCain was the arsonist who wanted to be praised for the great job he’s doing putting out the fire he started.

When Obama took quiet umbrage at McCain’s attack about troop-funding, he could have pounded the lectern and said with real anger: “John, I am sick and tired of you suggesting that I would take funds away from our brave soldiers. I no more voted for that than you did when you voted against our funding proposals that would have imposed a timetable. And unlike you, I did not vote against funding increases for the troops that have come home with devastating physical and mental injuries.”

And who cares what Henry Kissinger thinks? He was wrong 35 years ago, and it’s only gotten worse since then.

Obama did a poor job of getting under McCain’s skin. Or maybe McCain did an exceptional job of not letting Obama get under his skin. McCain nattered about earmarks and Obama ran out of gas.

We’re left waiting for a knockout debate. On to Palin-Biden. [/quote]

11

Thought this alittle amusing, in view of McCain’s “short North Koreans” comment:

[quote] During the first presidential debate, Senator John McCain called North Korea a “repressive brutal regime,” comparing life there to living in a prison camp. And then he summoned a bizarre statistic, saying that the average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean.

Mr. McCain is correct that there appears to be a growing gap in height between North and South Koreans, likely due to poor nutrition and impoverished living conditions. Studies of escapees from North Korea show that those born after the partitioning of the Korean Peninsula in the North were consistently about two inches shorter than their counterparts in the South, according to a 2004 report in Economics and Human Biology.

While the conditions for North Koreans are troubling, Americans have a similar height gap to worry about, and it also appears to be due to a lower standard of living, poor health care and inadequate nutrition. Last summer, the journal Social Science Quarterly reported that Americans are, quite literally, falling short of Europeans. In 1880, Americans were the tallest people in the world. But by 2000, American men, at an average height of 5-feet-10.5-inches, ranked 9th, and women, at about 5-feet-5-inches, fell to 15th. Several Northern European countries rank the highest in height, with the Dutch coming in first, at just over 6 feet for the men and 5-feet-7-inches for the women.

The height gap between Americans and Northern Europeans can’t be explained by an influx of short immigrants. Experts say the United States takes in too few immigrants to account for the disparity, and the height statistics cited in the article include only English-speaking native-born Americans, and don’t include people of Asian and Hispanic descent.

The real answer may be that Northern European countries do a better job of spreading the wealth and taking care of their children.

“We conjecture that perhaps the Western and Northern European welfare states, with their universal socioeconomic safety nets, are able to provide a higher biological standard of living to their children and youth than the more free-market-oriented U.S. economy,” wrote John Komlos, professor of economics at the University of Munich.[/quote]

well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/2 … ricans/?hp

12

I heard the Biden/Palin debate is Thursday at 7 pm. Does anyone know if that’s true? 7 pm in what time zone?

And, any idea if it will be live on CNN, as the first Presidential debate was?

13

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]I heard the Biden/Palin debate is Thursday at 7 pm. Does anyone know if that’s true? 7 pm in what time zone?

And, any idea if it will be live on CNN, as the first Presidential debate was?[/quote]

It’s on CNN.com’s front page (Int’l Ed.):

[quote]America Votes 2008
Joe Biden and Sarah Palin face off in VP debate. See it Live on CNN, Friday 0100 GMT | [color=#BF0000]0900 HK. [/color] [/quote]

14

That’s our Friday at 9:00 am?

Damn. Should I come in late to work for that? I’m tempted.

Or, is there some tech means of watching CNN live on ones computer?

15

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]That’s our Friday at 9:00 am?

Damn. Should I come in late to work for that? I’m tempted.

Or, is there some tech means of watching CNN live on ones computer?[/quote]

They replayed the 1st debate a couple times, so perhaps we can find a listing for that. Anyone?

EDIT:
Presidential-Friday-9.26-9:00pm - 10:30pm ET-Oxford, MS
Presidential Replay-Saturday-9.27-12:00am – 1:30am ET-Oxford, MS
Presidential Replay-Saturday-9.27-3:00am – 4:30am ET-Oxford, MS
Vice Presidential-Thursday-10.2-9:00pm - 10:30pm ET-St. Louis, MO
Vice Presidential Replay-Friday-10.3-12:00am – 1:30am ET-St. Louis, MO
Vice Presidential Replay-Friday-10.3-3:00am – 4:30am ET-St. Louis, MO
Presidential-Tuesday-10.7-9:00pm - 10:30pm ET-Nashville, TN
Presidential Replay-Wednesday-10.8-12:00am – 1:30am ET-Nashville, TN
Presidential Replay-Wednesday-10.8-3:00am – 4:30am ET-Nashville, TN
Presidential-Wednesday-10.15-9:00pm - 10:30pm ET-Hempstead, NY
Presidential Replay-Thursday-10.16-12:00am – 1:30am ET-Hempstead, NY
Presidential Replay-Thursday-10.16-3:00am – 4:30am ET-Hempstead, NY
source: cnnobservations.blogspot.com/

So Taibei time:
Friday morning 9am,
Friday midnight
Saturday 3pm

16

Wow, great job. Thanks a lot. Guess I’ll watch a replay.

17

Friday afternoon at 5:00 as well, according to their website