Yay, another “debate.” I was glad to see that both candidates were willing to eschew the debate rules to allow for some actual debate. Tom Brokaw didn’t like that so much.
Senator McCain came into the debate needing a game-changing moment, something to either damage Senator Obama or give himself a huge lift. Neither happened, so this was a lost opportunity for McCain and a loss overall. Obama owned McCain tonight. He connected with the audience and the viewers at home, and he was clear, physically secure, stylistically sound, and very presidential.
Some thoughts:
John McCain is old. While not ever mentioned directly or indirectly, the generation gap between Obama and McCain was stark. McCain really seemed like a old man. In several camera angles while Obama was delivering an answer, McCain was in the background wandering around the stage aimlessly. He made several attempts at jokes (hair transplants?) that he was the only one laughing at. And he twice made the comment that we need someone with a cool or steady “hand at the tiller.” Maybe this is a generational thing, but I had no idea what that meant. (A tiller is “a bar or lever fitted to the head of a rudder, for turning the rudder in steering.”)
My friends. A quick search through the transcript yields 19 times that McCain said the phrase “my friends” an average of about 1 time every 5 minutes. He has turned a phrase meant to be endearing and connecting into a tired, overused (old?) phrase.
Hypocrisy. McCain: “We don’t have time for on-the-job training, my friends.” Because your vice presidential pick is oh-so ready to lead on day one.
Petraeus. For all of McCain’s praise and name-dropping of General Petraeus, he ought to understand what Petraeus said about declaring victory in Iraq. McCain and Governor Palin both repeat the line about winning in Iraq and leading troops to victory, but the general says this: “This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade… it’s not war with a simple slogan.” The McCain campaign, of course, would have us all thinking differently.
McCain’s contempt of Obama. Let the video speak for itself:
Obama. He had two highly connecting responses. On service:
And the last point I just want to make. I think the young people of America are especially interested in how they can serve, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m interested in doubling the Peace Corps, making sure that we are creating a volunteer corps all across this country that can be involved in their community, involved in military service, so that military families and our troops are not the only ones bearing the burden of renewing America.
And on health care:
Well, I think it should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can’t pay their medical bills for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they’re saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.
Michelle and Barack. While the McCains left the hall, the Obamas stuck around well after the debate ended to chat with audience members voters. One more reason why they can connect so well with regular Americans even though they’re painted as “elite.”
