Barack Obama won.
For voters who watched only the first half-hour, it was a knockout. John McCain has yet to figure out how to fold his "reform" message into his economic message. It’s a mess. Last night, lacking the stomach to mount a vigorous defense of boneheaded Republican economic theory, he babbled on about earmarks so relentlessly that Obama finally had enough, pointing out that his opponent was obsessing about budgetary chump change. (It’s about time a Democrat took this tack. $18 billion? That’s it? Pork barrel spending is the price of representative democracy. I’d like to see more of it, if it would facilitate good legislation on the big stuff.)
When Lehrer turned to foreign policy, McCain evened things up by projecting strength and reminding voters of his experience. Obama looked presidential enough, but his mastery of the material almost worked against him. Fewer facts and more focus on the big picture would have been more effective. (But thankfully, we’re long past 2000, when the media spin-meisters decreed that Al Gore’s sighs and whispers trumped his intellectual qualifications. Eight years of watching Dubya govern by the seat of his running shorts has made intelligence acceptable again.)
I was glad to see Obama stand fairly strong when Lehrer pressed him on what he would sacrifice on the altar of the Big Bailout, but I would have rather he had said, essentially: Nothing, Jim. The Washington media is always looking for another Paul Tsongas. They won’t be satisfied until Social Security is privatized or gone. Let’s take a lesson from the Republicans. They never give an inch on their tax cut promises, no matter how many wars they start or budgets they bust. That’s why they’re the tax cut party. We need to stand on our solutions, not shrink from them.
I have a lot of problems with Barack Obama. I don’t like the way he obtained the Democratic nomination, and I have doubts about his commitment to fulfilling his promises. But he looked good last night.
I hope he thanks Hillary Clinton for the mortal combat she provided in the primaries. He wouldn’t have won the debate without her.
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2 comments:
Why is Nancy Pelosi unable to get the Democrats in the house to vote for the bail out? 60 democrats voted against it according to democratic biased CNN. Who's worse the Pelosi or Palin? Bush missed on 12, but Pelosi missed on 60.
Someone needs to write Pelosi a sternly worded letter!
MRS
Have you reviewed the stellar education of VP candidates?
Palin - She attended 4 colleges over 5 years to get a BS in communications-journalism. Yale, Harvard, Cornell, and Princeton? No. Hawaii Pacific, North Idaho, U of Idaho, and Matanuska-Susitna. On a positive note, she was named second runner-up in the Miss Alaska contest and awarded "Miss Congeniality". No wories, education is over rated.
Biden - Attended University of Delaware and graduated #506 out of 688 students with a BA in history and political science. What was next, Harvard? No. He graduated from Syracuse University College of Law where he was ranked 76 out of 85. What does it take to get into SU!!! The icing on the cake is that he described himself as "a lazy student". By the way, as a self proclaimed "lazy student" he was supprisingly caught "inadvertently" plagiarizing 5 pages of a law review article. The good news is that a tiger frequently changes its stripes.
I feel over qualified for VP of the United States. It just goes to show you ANYONE can be the President or at least the Vice President.
MRS
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