Skip to comments.

Posted on 10/07/2008 9:42:16 PM PDT by andrew roman

Two words kept popping in and out of my head during the second Presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain – disappointing and tedious. Setting aside the fact that the proceedings seemed to drag and on at an agonizingly tortuous pace with little more than eye-watering yawns from my end to disrupt the monotony, this debate had the personality of a lima bean can. Add to it the fact that there seemed to be more passion exuded by Tom Brokaw, the moderator, when asking the candidates to step aside from blocking his view of the teleprompter than anything either of them said on stage, and you’ve got a first-class, bona-fide dud.

Specifically – and perhaps most important – tonight’s “non-debate” debate was not, to quote a phrase, a “game changer” from Senator McCain – and frankly, I was hoping it would be. While I certainly don’t think Senator Obama as the next President of the United States is a foregone conclusion yet, he clearly took another step closer to the Oval Office on Tuesday. If the poll numbers are to be believed, neither candidate will do much in the way of movement as a result of this debate. In short, it was not a great night for the Republicans – and it really needed to be.

There was one moment, I would have to assume, meant to serve as that “game changer” for Senator McCain early in the debate – a grenade lobbed in from left field that, honestly, stunned me and fell well short of its intended target (at least for now). McCain, seemingly from whole cloth, said that when he is President, the federal government would help stabilize the housing market by buying up bad mortgages and refinancing them for home owners at market value – to the tune of $300 billion.

What?

I’ll need more information on that one before I blow a bazooka through it.

My frustration with this particular presentation was that I found myself disenchanted on two fronts. First, early in the debate, I found myself screaming at the television even more so than I had during their first debate, probably because I was yelling at both Obama and McCain, and often for the same things. It seemed to me, primarily, that they were differing on the finer points of similarly held positions.

Despite an all-too-quick and truncated attack by McCain on the Democratic involvement in the current financial crisis – which, by the way, started off promisingly enough and had me thinking this was going to be a feisty performance by him - there was yet again more McCain pandering with fuzzy-middle non-speak about corruption on Wall Street, blah, blah, blah …

Huge mistake.

Entirely too much time was spent on selling bi-partisanship and extending arms across the aisle. It came across as weak and contrived and surely did nothing to endear McCain to anyone.

Second, the number of missed opportunities by McCain to slap back hard at Senator Obama was staggering. My slowly building disgust was fuelled not only by the lack of substance coming from the lips of Senator Obama – which is a given - but in the fact that Senator McCain was profoundly ineffective in countering him as I wanted him to be – and as I felt he needed to be to turn the tide.

Perhaps I’m in a minority here, but I am sick of listening to Senator Obama and the Democratic Party demonize those who provide jobs to a large portion of the American public. I am also annoyed that no one – especially Senator McCain – calls out Senator Obama and his ridiculous assertion that 95% of Americans will get a tax cut under his “save the middle class” tax plan. How on earth is it possible to get a tax cut when you don’t pay income taxes? A little more than 45% of Americans do not – repeat, do not – pay income tax. That means Senator Obama’s “tax breaks” will amount to a welfare payment to those who don’t deserve it.

Senator McCain, are you home?

Can someone also inform Senator Obama that to raise taxes on corporations, as he wants to do and says is somehow “fair,” results in customers and workers bearing the ultimate burden?

I know you’re in there, Senator McCain! Can someone (figuratively only) just slap Senator Obama across the kisser – or anyone else for that matter – who has the utter audacity to call the attacks of 9/11 a "tragedy?" They were an act of war. Period.

This must anger you, Senator McCain! Show it!

Is there anyone with even a remedial knowledge of how budgets work willing to spare an afternoon (or perhaps a weekend) with Senator Obama to explain to him that the ten billion dollars a month being spent on funding the war in Iraq is not – repeat not – being taken away from anyone or anything domestically? It is not being diverted from, say, emergency food and clothing needed for naked, emaciated children in our inner cities. That’s not how it works, Senator Obama.

Answer the door, Senator McCain! The bottom line is … John McCain wasn’t horrifically bad. True, he had me biting my bottom lip when he went on about the conspicuousness of global warming; He had me shaking my head when he once again hoisted his arrows at the “greed” of Wall Street; He induced stomach gurgles when he kept reminding us how much of a maverick he is, pulling names like Feingold and Kennedy out of his hat. (I kept a bottle of Tums next to my cream soda as I watched).

However, let me say, without reservation, that substantively, Senator McCain was the clear winner of this debate. The problem was … he just wasn’t as good as he should have been … and frankly, could have been.

It’s not over by any means … I just wanted more of a “Hell yeah!” taste in my mouth at the end of that day.

I walked away with an “Uh, okay.”

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.