After a very busy month of lawyering the old debater in me can no longer be contained. Tonight's blog format will be an us vs. them format. Us bloggers vs. them candidates, as they'd say on Red Neck Comedy.
So tonight, we get to debate the candidates.
70 comments:
Damn, missed the first question with an inadvertent muting.
And McCain comes out swinging to the left, just like the last debate. Moving to the left of Obama on buying up the mortgages. Goodness, he's already lost.
Obama gets to say "tax cut" before McCain does. What's this world coming to?
TRS: Sen. Obama's plan is based on the false premise that prosperity emerges from taxation.
My plans are realistic and can be accomodated without creating tax burdens on struggling tax payers.
Well, so far it's a debate between a guy that wants to tax and spend and a guy that wants to tax and spend somewhat less.
TRS: Sen. Obama's plan is based on the false premise that prosperity emerges from taxation.
My plans are realistic and can be accomodated without creating tax burdens on struggling tax payers.
TRS:
First, how does Sen. Obama cut taxes on the 40% of working Americans who pay no taxes. Sen. that's simply socialism, pure and simple.
Mac is otherwise giving a good answer. Cathching Obama in a moment of candor.
McCain is bogging himself down early in a wonkish debate of details. He needs to throw haymakers...like the one he's throwing right now about "spreading the wealth around." Now that's more like it. Joe the Plumber is working for McCain.
The last three minutes of this debate is the most lively, active, feisy, and presidential he's looked since after the convention. He scored major points with that exchange on the CNN audience member.
TRS. Senator, you still haven't explained how you cut taxes for people who don't pay taxes and not call it socialism.
Moreover, Senator, every tax you raise on a business increases the cost of gas at the pump and food on the table. Why do you want to do that to working families.
Good answer by Mac.
Obama is too much on cruise control so far and is too flacid. He needs to pick it up a notch. He's obviously way ahead, but McCain is a fighter and he can't mail it in already.
But goodness, McCain's big government solution on the mortgages is killing me. He can't out-entitlement or out-spend Obama. Why talk about saving government money at the same time you're not only voting for the biggest government boondoggle ever, but also trying to add another $300 billion+ to it?
TRS says: Senator, my folks always told me that a fellas past is the best predictor of his future.
In your brief career in the United States Senator you have been one of the most prolific employers of ear marks-pure pork for your home voters.
In my three decade career, I've never requested one. In that same three decades no Democrat President and no Democrat congress has ever reduced overall spending.
Much like the wronged spouse, I'm willing to bet the American people will choose to believe their lying eyes.
Good line by McCain to Obama about Bush. His argument on balancing the budget is good and effective, but by supporting the sellout/bailout he undercut a major theme of his own campaign.
Senator, before you get to far down that Bush bashing to which you are prone, let's review the past eight years.
You do recall that Pres. Bush inherited a recession, then WW3 has broken out, and throw in the two worst natural disasters in American history. I'm not President Bush but if you're not willing to deal with those crises what would you prioritize?
so far on CNN the lines of uncommitted voters has favored McCain. The lines are certainly not as positive for Obama
McCain is trying to get under Obama's skin, but so far Obama is keeping his cool.
Obama did an effective job parrying the McCain jab about how he never stands up against his party. And Obama's line about even Fox News even saying McCain's line about tax increases is really good, as is acknowledging McCain's independence as commendable up front. Always good to compliment your opponent before they do.
TRS says: No Senator, my plans are designed to solve the new problems that I will inherit in 2009. Your plans are merely more of the income redistribution and the nanny state the Jimmy Carter and Teddy Kennedy have be selling for years.
It fooled us once before when we were so disappointed with government, and the American people suffered for four years with Jimmy Carter and a real depression and collapse overseas.
the Who said it best, we won't be fooled again.
Great, great question by Bob Schiefer on the attack ads. Great question.
And McCain's false sanctimony about John Louis' remarks is good, good theater. Instead of attacking his opponent straight up, he uses the attacks of his opponent's supporters to not only attack him but also play the victim. That's great, great stuff. As is calling out Obama for going back on his word on public financing.
This is good, working in Lewis.
However, TRS would add.
The Americans people need to look around them, in their own lives, and ask how many time the liberal thought police prevent them from saying something because they will be labelled racist, or sexist, or facist.
So Cong. Lewis and Senator Obama are just playing and old game. Well, I may be old but I'm too game to be silenced by a racist canard.
Obama attacks and viewers don't like it...
Obama looks weak here. Really weak here. His weakest moment in the three debates thus far. McCain has stung him in this exchange.
TRS says:
Senator, you sure didn't repudiate Lewis so I guess the American people can take it as an endorsement. That sounds more Teheran than Tulsa or Toledo.
As for 527s Senator, do you mean the ones that riduculed me for being physically unable to operate a key board.
Is that the candor and behaivor that the American people associate with a President. Not this American.
classic Obama... deflect and change the topic. He is weak tonight.
Senator, how can you not sit here and repudiate that attack? Not justify it, qualify it or parse it-just some straight talk.
Senator, are you capable of candor? Are you seriously equating the random fringe with a 40 year veteran of Congress?
I can't let Steve and Ted be the only posters (sorry ek). My knowledge of politics and history does not come close to either of you so my comments may be a bit simplistic but to me the biggest point is "spread the wealth around". Go ahead and call it socialism. I'm loving the exchange here on negative campaigning, bad comments by campaing attendees, etc. Love McCain's response.
McCain, perhaps unintentionally, is not only showing Obama's hypocrisy on attack ads, but also that for the first time in this campaign when challenged directly Obama will not retaliate. That speaks to the commander-in-chief angle as well, and McCain should make the point that if Obama won't stand up to John Louis he won't stand up to Iran, either.
Senator, some perspective please. Let's just not scare monger tonight?
The worst financial crises were the Carter years of actual depression. You aren't old enought to remember but the unemployment rate wasn't 6% it was !0%. Inflation wasn't 6% it was 16%. Interest rates were 5%, they were close to 25%.
That's where the economics of "spreading the wealth around" get's the American people.
McCain is now playing on his turf for a change, not Obama's. McCain can't out-entitle or out-spend Obama, but what he can do as the most self-righteous politician in Washington during my lifetime is to out-sanctimony Obama.
Obama cannot not win a self-piety argument with McCain. It's who he is, and he's good at it for better or for worse. As long as the argument remains who is the most sanctimonius, McCain wins.
McCain is now playing on his turf for a change, not Obama's. McCain can't out-entitle or out-spend Obama, but what he can do as the most self-righteous politician in Washington during my lifetime is to out-sanctimony Obama.
Obama cannot not win a self-piety argument with McCain. It's who he is, and he's good at it for better or for worse. As long as the argument remains who is the most sanctimonius, McCain wins.
Seantor, you, of course also aren't old enough to remember that Paul Volker was the Fed Chairman who implemented the disasterous Carter redistributive scheme that brought about the last depression.
Man, Schiefer is asking some good questions tonight. And he's letting them go back and forth. This is a well-moderated debate thus far. The moderator is serving the American people well.
Senator, you just gave ACORN $800,000 to fund the registration program that is under criminal investigation! Ho can you minimize that relationship? It just insn't credible.
Well, Senator, I was certainly humbled and impressed when my friend Joe Biden said he would be proud to run with me.
About that same time Joe said you were too inexperienced to be President and that your votes endangered our soldiers in teh field.
Obama's VP answer is going over well. He needs to get this back on issues and off of personalities and associations. Whenever this election is about personal stuff (McCain's heroism, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, etc.) McCain wins. When it's about issues, Obama wins.
McCain's discussion of Sarah Palin is going absolutely nowhere with women on the CNN voter response graph. Absolutely nowhere.
Bob's among the last of a dying breed. I agree, good job.
Love the comments on the Veep qualifications. I agree, Steve, this is a well rounded and directed debate that allows each candidate to speak freely.
This is a good effort by McCain tonight. He's clearly more comfortable as a scrappy underdog. Things might've turned out different had he done this in the previous two debates, too.
McCain's answer on energy is perhaps the consistently highest remarks he's gotten in any of the debates from the CNN viewer response graph. I really liked the fact he left out that phone global warming, cap and trade garbage he's into.
But Obama is scoring well with hsi answer, too.
TRS
I am committed to reprioritize existing federal spending to more fully fun clean and renewable fuel.
We simultaneously increase drilling offshore and drilling and mining shale for CNG. This will also kill the oil speculators.
We create tax credits to convert existing homes to solar and wind and service stations to CNG.
We immediately grant 45 federal licenses for new nuclera plants.
Senator-you said you wanted to unilaterally renogtiate the trade agreement we have with Canada-our largest trading partner.
Don't you think our most reliable and friendly supplier of oil is the one country we should hold close? or do you prefer $6 a gallon gas?
This is McCain's best moment in the debates.
so at the cost to the american people, we need to slap the wrist of Colombia because they have 'bad guys' in their country.
I'm probably closer to Obama on trade agreements than I am McCain. But McCain is consistently taking it aggressively to Obama tonight. He's hoping to accomplish two things:
1) Get under Obama's skin and rattle him.
2) Show his base not to abandon ship (which some are) because there's still fight in the old lady left.
Unless he totally rattles Obama and Obama says something stupid, it won't change the polls but this might stop the bleeding for a few days and buy McCain some time for one final push.
Senator, perhaps you don't understand that Colombia is in a near civil war with extremists and narco-terrorists.
Its moments like this that reveal the true extent of Sen. Obama's radicalism. Its the same old story, just like Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry tried in the 80s in Central America.
We won't be fooled again.
Could we combine McCain's stance on taxes with where Obama is at on trade? That, in my mind, would be best for the American people.
Senator Obama, if you eliminate pre-existing conditions you're going to drive up the premium costs for everyone, including those that don't have any, because the insurance company will just pass that liability cost onto the customer.
Senator McCain, the plumber Joe schtick has jumped the shark.
Just like the Senator didn't address the great benefits that Americans would receive from more trade with Colombia, he ignores the question on healthcare costs.
Senator, the federal plan you are describing is a blank check for medical providers. Virtually every bit of historical evidence demonstrates that increasing federal funding increases over all costs. Just the facts, Senator.
Just the facts.
now large employers can 'automatically' afford it? Where would AIG be in that scenario?
Obama is brillantly making a case for healthcare cost-shifting. Which my Bible describes with a very simple word: stealing.
This McCain attack is going nowhere with the CNN viewer response graph. McCain may have overplayed his hand with the audience here.
Senator, you just made up the story about taxing the "tax credit". Its a credit.
Nice freudian slip by McCain, referring to Obama as "Senator Government."
Seantor Obama simply and glibbly ignores the millions of small business who now provide insurance but now will but unable to change their plans.
Now there's a job creating strategy Senator. Even Jimmy Carter wasn't that anti-business.
Good night, McCain is defending his ultimate sellout with the gang of 14 and is bragging about voting for the confirmation of Justice Ginsburg. John McCain: just when you think you can get on board he throws you under the bus.
The double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Who would've thought that it would take a CBS newsman to bring up the sanctity of life in the final debate, and it would never come from the Whig presidential ticket?
ignore the father and baby in that decision to kill a baby, Senator Obama... save a mass murderer from death, but abort the future of our country...
Seantor, in the words of the Gipper, there you go again.
You are simply saying that judges should be determined based on their political ideology and not on their judicial qualifications.
You know, America, that sound you just heard was that of our Founding Fathers turning over in their graves.
An independent and a political judiciary is one of the cornerstones of this nation.
Americans-do you want an openly partisan judiciary?
I didn't go to an Ivy League law school senator but I think Lady Justice is blind, not liberal.
Now that is as good of an attack by a Republican presidential candidate on a Democrat regarding the killing of babies as I have ever seen.
And who would've guessed it would come from a Republican president whose not entirely pro-life?
Senator-you do realize that there is an actual record of your vote, which wasn't just a present this time, of your vote in opposition to a bill that would require the provision of health care to the survivor of a failed abortion.
How could anyone of conscience ever reconcile their opposition to such a principle?
Is that the compassion that liberals have in mind for the American people.
McCain's B.S. answer on nobody being pro-abortion, and preventing abortions so women don't have to face that decision is going over well with the CNN viewer response graph.
McCain should've counter-attacked there, but he didn't.
I'm sorry, that was Obama's B.S. answer, my bad on the typo.
now obama wants to give a $4000 tax credit for students that spend $10,000 per year in schooling... wasn't he just against the health plan from McCain that did a similar thing?
John McCain is really moving back to the left to cater to the independents.
THAT IS WRONG!! And will cost him the election. He needs to move people to the base. There is a huge rift in the Republican Party and John McCain has done his part tonight to seal the deal.
Obama will win this election 330-155, and if we are very very very lucy we will keep them from getting 60 senate seats! For christ's sake, THAT IS THE BATTLE IN OCTOBER!
You think things are bad now? Wait until the libs have a 60% majority in the senate, and a liberal President.
Who are we going to field in 2012 to beat this guy?
It's amazing -- and tragic -- to see just how left this country has turned (thank you President Bush). On the absolute worst policy answers Obama gives, on things like healthcare, abortion, and education, his answers soar with the viewers.
I said it last debate and I'll say it again: this is what happens when an entire generation of conservatives fail to defend, explain, evangelize, and advance their beliefs.
Senator, Dear Lord didn't you hear the question.
We already spend more per capita on education than any other country on earth and all that you have said is how to spend more money on education.
Just like his healthcare plan, Senator Obama simply promotes more and larger government without any concern for cost or result.
Things are broken in the schools and its not from lack of money? Since teacher vote about 80/20 Democrat and college professers about 95/5 you have to ask who has an interest in preserving and enriching a failed system.
I think you'll find the answer in all of those Democrat voters in the NEA and across America's college campuses.
We need reform the schools with a new agenda not simply conform the schools to a better funded but utterly failed status quo.
Overall, this was McCain's best performance of the debates -- although that's not saying much in all honesty. He was brutal in the first two.
Had he done this in the first debate, he could've built on this in the ensuing ones and redefined Obama accordingly. However, this is his last face-to-face moment with Obama, so he needed a knockout blow and he didn't get one. He staggered Obama with a couple of solid hook-and-jabs, but he couldn't land the roundhouse.
This performance will stop the bleeding with McCain's base and buy him some time to figure out his message these final days. But it won't dramatically move the polls, nor the fact Obama is out-spending McCain at least 3-to-1 on television ads in battleground states.
I just get the sense the country, sadly, is prepared to turn hard left and is just looking for an excuse to vote for Obama.
They're pissed at Bush, they're pissed at Republicans that don't do what they promise, they're pissed at the bailout, etc.
When this is all over, there's going to be quite a civil war on the Right throughout 2009 as the blame game begins. A new generation of leadership is going to emerge, and depending on which group of leaders emerge the GOP will go the way of its Whig predecessors or discover its next Reagan Revolution.
The sad thing is the Republican Party has only itself to blame for Barack Obama. By growing government, borrowing money, printing a fiat currency, not securing the border, not maintaining morale at home for the war, and not doing enough to defend traditional values, they greased the skids for the American people to choose the logical extension of center-left government.
The Republicans made it okay for others to steal your money, so the American people just decided to go with the folks who would give them the most of it.
Finally, mad props to Bob Schiefer, who moderated a great debate. He did a great job.
I am watching the replay of the debate and I believe Mac did OK but he needed knockout punches at this point. I noticed Obama used "Lilly Ledbetter vs. Goodyear" to a need for more affirmative action for women. Of course, he never mentioned how he wanted to fix it but the current plans are to give women (not men) a $10K tax deduction, pay women 26% more than men, as well as change the law to put the burden of proof against employers. This is a Jesse Jackson Rainbow coalition shakedown on a national scale. Unfortunately, Mac let this one go by AGREEING that women are somehow discriminated against in our society. Unbelievable, no wonder Mac is dying in this campaign, he keeps agreeing with Obama's basic positions!!!!!
And, Steve correctly pointed out "The sad thing is the Republican Party has only itself to blame for Barack Obama. By growing government, borrowing money, printing a fiat currency, not securing the border, not maintaining morale at home for the war, and not doing enough to defend traditional values, they greased the skids for the American people to choose the logical extension of center-left government."
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The conservative and the independents are not lining up behind the evangelicals. In the past the republican candidates were fiscal conservatives and Rove got the evangelicals to join in. There are not enough votes to elect and evangelical candidate in a primary let alone a general election. And in this general election it seems the fiscal conservatives abandoned McCain after his choice for VP. McCain may have energized the evangelicals with Palin, but he left the independents going the other way. More revivals in the future is not the answer.
Romney would haven eaten this boy's lunch for him. Instead we get McCain babbling some incoherant nonsense, repeating himself..........
I agree 100%.
I found this little nugget over on Battlegroun.
If you are a National Committeewoman, your JOB is to SUPPORT ALL the Republican candiates. If she is not going to do that, she needs to resign NOW.
“Kim Lehman’s Multiple Personalities Posted on Wednesday, October 15,2008 at 10:47AM by Nathan Greene in Abortion, Miller-Meeks | 2 Comments By Emily Geiger
For those of you that read this blog regularly, you know that the pro-life issue is one that I am very passionate about. I had a really interesting email forwarded to me the other day. It was from the Iowa Right to Life Committee contained a link to their pre-election newsletter. Keep in mind that IRLC is led by Kim Lehman, the recently elected GOP national committee woman. For the first page of the newsletter, it was pretty much what I
expected. John McCain is super great on the life issue (which we all know isn’t a totally honest portrayal), and Barack Obama is Satan incarnate
which may be true, but I digress).
Then I got to the second page, and I was sickened. You see, after extolling the virtues of John McCain, the second page of the news letter contained an
article, reading:
The Great Pretender Award: Mariannette Miller-Meeks
The “Great Pretender Award” goes to Miller-Meeks, who says on her website,“I believe in the sanctity of life at both ends of the spectrum.” That would lead one to believe that she’s pro-life, right? WRONG!
Miller-Meeks is pro-abortion and believes in birth control education over abstinence-only. According to the Burlington Hawkeye (5/27/08), Meeks has
even gone so far as to say that as a legislator, there is nothing she can do to stop abortion.
Miller-Meeks needs an Oscar, not a seat in Congress.”
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