[nathanbedford]

On returning from church late one Sunday morning president Calvin Coolidge was accosted by a newspaper reporter who asked, "what was the sermon about?" "Sin," replied the notoriously laconic president. The reporter persisted, "what did he say about it?" "He was against it."

When I read,

"I don’t need to watch two people debate to find out who’s the candidate that most closely reflects my values"

I thought, Calvin Coolidge did not need to actually go to the church and sit through the sermon to learn the preacher's values about sin. That is not the entire point of attending a sermon, that is not the point of worshiping, or, for that matter, the point of viewing a presidential debate in real time.

I felt a little bit put off by the insinuation that I have a shallow apprehension of the issues and the parties for which I must compensate by watching the debates. That is a little bit like saying that I am naïve about sin. I watch the debates for many reasons.

I admit that the first reason is a horserace reason, I want to handicap the candidates and make a judgment about how their performance will affect the race. I want to do this by watching television not by being in the hall because it is television which will shape the national consensus. I want to do this because I believe as a conservative that my views are moral, because I too am against sin, and I believe that for the other side to prevail would be the moral equivalent of a political sin.

Call me a hobbyist if you like, but I care passionately about the country and I believe passionately that the results of this election could be fatal for the country with all that implies for my children and grandchildren. If I were on MSNBC they probably would call me a "Republican Strategist", which means a talking head with virtually no other credentials than that I support the Republican.

Having seen the debate, I want to contribute something to the advancement of my cause if I can and, since I am here in Germany and cannot knock on doors, I choose to do it by writing on Free Republic. Sometimes, one feels that what one writes on Free Republic is picked up by talk radio personalities and the effect of one's efforts are leveraged. Sometimes, real discussion is stimulated on these threads. Anyway, unlike Calvin Coolidge it satisfies me declare to the world that I am against sin.

In this respect I applaud your blog piece because I agree with virtually all of the sentiments in it except the sort of backhanded put down for those of us who get more excited over presidential debates than the Super Bowl. Politics in many ways is like preaching, one must be against sin, of course, but one must also convince. John Kennedy said, "first, you gotta win."

We gotta win.

[moneyrunner]

I felt a little bit put off by the insinuation that I have a shallow apprehension of the issues and the parties for which I must compensate by watching the debates.

I did not mean to imply that people who watch these debates are all shallow and I did not imply that the 60 million who watched it were wrong to do so. I’m very glad that it got a huge audience. I was trying to make two points: the first one is a personal one; I find that watching these presentations “live” is painful to me so I don’t do it. Second, I am not among the “undecided” that will be swayed by a superior debate performance. From your response that is also true of you.

My main point is that the Barack Obama and the Mitt Romney people saw in the debate are the real deal. This is as good as either one is going to get (remember the Jack Nicholson movie). The Obama you saw is the one making economic decisions and foreign policy decisions. If that doesn’t scare the heck out of you I don’t know what does.