I hate Bill O'Reilly but tonight this truly will be a no spin zone. The Debate tonight was a contrast in styles, beliefs, and approach. In my personal opinion at best I would say it was a tie. At worst McCain maybe scored a few more points than Obama. But the fact is John McCain needed a knockout on this night because foreign policy and national security is supposed to be his strong suit. I had been anticipating this debate for quite some time because I just had a feeling that Obama would and could hold his own. I still believe that Obama has some areas he can shore up though and thats some of what I am going to focus on.
Let me start off with what I felt was the negatives to get them out of the way. The most obvious of course was the many times that Barack Obama said the words "John McCain is right". As the debate went on the more he repeated this line the more I cringed. I just knew it would end up coming back to bite him in the ass and sure enough here is what we have before the debate is even over:
'McCain is right'
http://www.youtube.com/...
The McCain campaign is up with a very fast YouTube on Obama's repeated assents to things McCain said.
Another problem in my opinion was Barack Obama's willingness to always try to correct McCain on his record. Now without a doubt there are some falsehoods that have to be dealt with because they are either so misleading and or so egregious that to leave them unchecked would risk losing some undecided voters. But by challenging every allegation Obama put himself on the defensive a lot more than he needed to. Its a lot harder to attack when you are trying to play defense. Sometimes you have to let a minor misrepresentation go IMHO in order to unleash your own attack in response. If he continues debating that way then he will allow McCain to set the agenda and of course that would be a very bad thing
On the other end of the spectrum was a few of the falsehoods that Obama let slide by which he could have pointed to independent factcheckers having debunked like the notion that the 2005 Energy Bill gave a tax cut to big oil.
http://www.politifact.com/...
Another thing that I felt Barack could shore up is not mentioning the lower class when talking about the middle class. I know that there is a perception that Barack has to stay away from focusing on poor people or black people but I really believe that he need to incorporate the people who aren't middle class but are fighting to make it INTO the middle class when he talks about the economy.
I believe that Obama going forward needs to include more personal ancedotes WITH people's names. Not just some nameless people he has supposedly met on the campaign trail. We need to hear about Mary and Joe who are having hard times etc etc etc. We already know that the large majority of McCain's answers will be personal stories and rightly or wrongly that makes a candidate look more like he relates to the common man.
Barack needs to have a central theme that he can consistently come back to about John McCain to finish just about every answer with. Whether it be something saying John McCain is stuck in the past, or maybe the times have passed him by. If he could continue to hit that home it has almost a hypnotic effect on people. Its the same way that John McCain used the term Senator Obama does not understand. I can guarantee you that some independents will be hearing that phrase in their sleep tonight.
I have tried to refrain from joining the chorus on this issue but now I have to speak up. GET FRIKKIN PISSED BARACK!!! There is a time for calm in my opinion and that is when someone is attacking you. But when you are talking about defending regular Americans from whom ever whether it be big business or terroist Barack Obama needs to start raising his voice and pounding his fist about just how hard he is going to FIGHT for us. And judicious use of the word fight would help a lot too!
Now this is a personal pet peeve of mine about Republicans/Neocons in general. When they engage in a debate whether it be the various surrogoates on cable news shows or the actual candidates invariably the Republicans and Neocons always try to shout down the Democrats/Progressives. And it absolutely drives me batshit when the Dem or Progressive allows it to happen. There are a few Dems who don't go for that shit like Paul Begala, James Carville, and Representative Wexler. Well tonight there were several times where Barack allowed John McCain to over talk him and he just gave up. If Barack Obama or anybody who knows him would ever see this Diary read my lips .....FUCK THAT!!! It is a gentlemanly thing to do anywhere other than a debate. In a debate its either you or him and it BETTER be him. Next time Obama needs to continue to talk and over talk John McCain and not give an inch. Hell in my opinion if Obama wanted to dispute some of the falsehoods that McCain was saying he should have interrupted him AS SOON AS THE WORDS CAME OUT OF HIS MOUTH. What in hell was Jim Lehr gonna do? Rightly or wrongly allowing McCain to do that may come off to some folks as soft and the last thing Obama wants to be seen as is soft. I mean lets all be real here for a minute. Who in their right mind would take John McCain in a fist fight against Barack Obama?!?!?!?! For all of McCain's tough talk Obama would kick the dog shit out of him in a fist fight and Obama needs to give off that same aura in a verbal sense.
Now that I have talked about the negatives lets get to the positives
First I think the best thing that Barack did was attack McCain a couple of times when I don't think McCain was ready for it. As soon as McCain chastised Obama for talking about striking in Pakistan I was like "he has to punish him for giving him this opening" And he did. He hit him with the prime minister of Spain gaffe and the bomb Iran song. Now I do think it would have been a KNOCKOUT blow had he actually sung the song like McCain did bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran. But thats just splitting hairs. Overall he could have attacked a lot more but at least when he did attack it was VERY effective.
Secondly I think Barack was very direct tonight. He elaborated a lot on his answers but not in a bad way. He did not duck any questions nor any hard attacks by McCain. He also spoke in away that sounded like an everyday conversation. If anybody came off as a professor tonight it was John McCain. I think Obama went a long way towards shedding the elitist tag tonight.
I think Obama did a masterful job of bringing the Iraq war back to the beginning which is how you win the "Surge" argument. He not only took us back to the wrong predictions that John McCain had before the war in Iraq ticking them off one by one. He also repeated several times that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and I think that was huge also. He has to keep fighting against the Neocon revisionist history and putting the truth back out there for us all to think about.
One thing that Barack Obama did and has to keep doing is using straightforward terms on how he would prosecute people who want to harm the U.S. Because of the unfounded beliefs of some independents and centrist Republicans think he might not be strong on national security. When he put the screws to John McCain possibly the most tonight was when he corrected John McCain about what he had said about taking out Bin Ladin or high value al qaeda and taliban targets in Pakistan if the Pakistanis can not or will not take them out. When he said to McCain "if John disagrees with me on that I would love to hear him say it" I almost jumped up out of my seat. I don't know if I was the only one who caught it since none of the pundits are talking about it but I thought it was a very powerful hit to McCain. I also felt a few times during the night that Obama was almost challenging McCain to repeat some of the LIES that he has spewed about him on the campaign trail like the Iran is tiny bullshit. But McCain didnt even attempt that foolishness to his own credit or maybe from a lack of balls.
Once again I felt like Barack Obama kept his cool under fire. He kept up the projection of a steady hand through out the debate and I think a lot of independents are watching him and recognizing that he is unflappable and that nothing seems to get to him.
I was also happy that Barack Obama shot down some of the silly stuff that John McCain has been saying for months like saying Barack Obama voted to cut off our troops. I have been REALLY bothered by the fact that up until now Barack Obama had never challenged him on this when its a matter of record that John McCain voted against the war funding bill that had a timetable in it. That Lie to me gave a lot of people who were on the fence a reason to lean away from Obama. I mean literally if someone really was cutting off funding to our troops to me that would and should be considered treasonous. I only hope he didnt wait to long to correct McCain on that.
Overall I thought it a good night for Barack Obama but i do think he could have done better and if he steps it up the next debate should be a homerun.
Quick hits on McCain negatives
- Not looking at Obama all night
- Just like Al Gore several times you could hear McCain making sounds on the microphone
- The slip up on Henry Kissinger and talks with Iran
- The opening when he said Barack was wrong for talking about attacking Pakistan
- Not talking about the middle or lower class the whole night
- Trying to tie Obama to Bush was a dumb move