Obama didn’t say one single thing of substance, but McCain seemed to be pulling his punches.
He did try to tie Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac around Obama’s neck — but he said it weakly and onlyonce. He needs to say it more strongly and repeatedly. He pointed out the problems with Fannie and Freddie as early as 2002, tried to do something about them, but was rebuffed by Democrats who fervently defended those two entities. The second largest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac contributions was Barack Obama. Her and his party are a major part of the problem.
He and Sarah are both going at Obama’s false claim that he’ll cut txes for 95 percent of Americans in the wrong way. BO is for repealing the tax cuts of 2001 and for increasing the capital gains tax, among other things. This is an increase in your taxes that far outweighs any cut BO might gie you.
And tehy need to point out his shameful interference in Iraq, urging a slowdown in the wihtdrawal of troops and asking aliki to press for that. Taht is a Logan Act violation. Tie that in with his expressions of support for the war in his 2004 campaign, in which he told the Chicago Sun-times that withdrawing the troops would be “a disaster” and that “my position is about the same as George Bush’s.” Now all of a sudden, he’s against the war just when we’re on the cusp of victory.
Keep repssing energy issues. I would have mentioned that France and Norway get 80 percent of their power from nuclear energy and they store the wastes underground with no apparent ill effects. I would also have expressed support for clean coal, natural gas, and for the Pickens Plan — as long as T. Boone and his investors don’t ask for a gvernment handout to do it. (We should also get rid of the trade barriers against Brazilian sugar ethanol, but I wouldn’t mention that too much.)
He needed to hit BO’s inexperience on foreign policy harder.
And yes, he needed to talk about Ayers, Rezko, Wright, Rahid Khalidi, and so forth — perhaps in connection with Obama being the second largest recipient of Fannie and Freddie money (all of tehm showing his poor judgments in his corrupt friendships. That’s acharacter issue.)
But McCain will never do any of this because he’s too busy showing off how “bipartisan” he is. (Bipartisan — the Democrats and McCain.)
I think you make some good points.
I remember hearing before the 1st debate that McCain doesn’t like practicing/preparing for debates. That went through my mind at least a couple of times last night. I think he needs to practice for the next debate. As many have pointed out, he missed a lot of opportunities to hit back and take 0bama to task and set the record straight on the lies Barack was spouting, but he didn’t. IMHO he stayed primarily w lines from his stump speech. After hearing them a few times, I’d like him to get some new lines, be able to counter 0bama’s lines, and sound a bit more passionate about it (he doesn’t have to get angry, just show a little emotion).
That said, I think he did OK and, for the most part, his answers were more substantive. 0bama seem to ramble and not answer questions, though I can see how some thought he was smooth and polished (in my mind, like a used car or snake oil salesman - - apologies to all used car and snake oil salesmen out there). I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when some of the college kids on Fox thought 0bama had better answers - I don’t think they were listening to the answers, but rather looking at the style.
I think that one of the reasons the debate was less than scintillating was the questions themselves - very sterile, and obviously chosen by Brokaw. It would have been more exciting if answers could have been asked by people randomly chosen from the audience (though after Hillary’s debate, we have seen that those can be fixed w plants, too).
Will the debate change the mind of undecided voters? Possibly, but probably not many, if there are truly that many undecided voters out there.