There is a lot to relate about the 3rd debate of McCain/Obama so more may be done tomorrow. Some preliminary observations, though, are that once again, many pundits (and possibly the present author) scored the debate a relative draw, with McCain getting in many attacks versus a relatively defense-playing Obama. However, due to "visuals" or a "support the likely winner" effect, snap polls again show Obama winning.
Some more:
- Both candidates had a tendency to get "folksy" a la Sarah Palin, in particular dropping the g's off the ends of words that have g's at the end.
(yet more below)
My notes have "Americans are hurtin'" by McCain, and "individuals who are strugglin' right now" by Obama. There may be other examples out there for the truly alert.
There was also the informal "a" ending, e.g., "95% of ya out there will get a tax cut" (Obama), and "You shoulda run 4 years ago [against Bush]" (McCain).
...What is Palin doing to our English language??
- The "abortion" (technically, "court appointments", but largely about abortion) part of the debate was interesting; maybe it was good for Obamaism.org to put up this post about abortion and Obama a few days ago.
Maybe Obama even read it, since some of the things he said were in that vein, especially when he observed that "abortion is a very difficult issue, a moral issue", that "sexuality is sacred", and that "cavalier activity" is bad. (This is not the same, exactly, as saying abortion should be safe, legal, and...rare, but it's fairly close, and puts the lie to the "abortion is ONLY a health issue, NOT a moral one" sloganeering.)
Obama also showed some nice constitutional-law-professor/lecturer chops when he said that the Constitution protects privacy rights, which are not subject to state referenda, just like the First Amendment isn't something that states can easily take away.
One thing Obama could've done even better is to echo some Obamaism.org language about ensuring that serious threats to women's life or health are needed to allow late-term abortion. (Especially since Obama himself said similar things back in July, see the link to the O.o abortion post above.) This would have been useful in defusing McCain's following comment that the "health of the mother" has been stretched to mean anything.
(Of course, McCain went too far in what he said, and this may hurt him. However, in future discussion, a mention that the health problem should be serious or grave, will make it hard even to assert that the exception for the mother's health is only some loophole.)
McCain scored then slightly by mentioning that he and Cindy are adoptive parents, and that it takes courage to bring the child into the world. However, these pleasant-sounding things will probably not make up for his mocking the "health of the mother" exception, one suspects.
- As for "Mc-mocking": one wonders if McCain was doing his McJagger, uh, Mick Jagger imitation last night, with his tongue stuck out repeatedly.
It was actually pretty cool, but I don't know if it'll win him the election. (People still like presidents to have ""poise"", which is why, again, the "visuals" may have propelled Obama beyond how a more substantive look at the debate might assign points to each candidate.)
Final word for now--McCain: he can't get no satisfaction. I think people of all points on the spectrum can agree with that.
More tomorrow or thereabouts. Have a pleasant day.