Last night, while many of you were watching the first of three Presidential debates, Dotty, Dick, Dan and I went to the Film Noir series at the North Carolina Museum of Art. 

The film, Nightmare Alley, starred Tyrone Power and a trio of women he used (and who used him) over a seedy lifetime of manipulating gullible people with carnival tricks.  It was quite fun and quite predictable, as old film noir often are.

This morning, I sat before the television with coffee in hand and watched a DVR of the Presidential Debate.  I hadn't made the connection until I started blogging...but there, too, I witnessed the attempted manipulation of gullible folks with a collection of carnival tricks.  And a candidate perfectly willing to use a woman (in this case Sarah Palin) for his own gain.

I'm referring to John McCain, who resorted to his stump speech and "fact based" sleight of hand to accuse Barack Obama of everything from inexperience to naivet'e to being for losing the war in Iraq.

McCain made allusions to his own p.o.w. history at least three times, wrapped himself in the WWII flag on two occasions and brought out his show n' tell bracelet worn in honor of a dead soldier.  That played well to his Republican crowd but didn't do much to sway anyone else.  And I thought McCain made a huge verbal misstep when he said that the lesson of Iraq is that "You cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict."  Huh?

This is the guy who is supposed to be the experienced military leader?  For him to have a deer in the headlights response to that question in a foreign policy debate is downright incredible.

Obama, by contrast, made his only misstep of the night when he said, "I have a bracelet, too."  It played well with Democrats, but missed with everyone else.

Still, I personally score the debate as a tie.  Primarily because Obama missed a couple of opportunities.  When McCain said Obama had put in $932 million in earmark requests for Illinois, Obama should have shot back that McCain's own running mate had requested far more on a per capita basis than Obama ever did. 

He should have had one or two examples of the requests and why they were needed.  And then he should have done what he did, which is point out that earmarks account for a relatively minor component of government spending.

The other opportunity Obama missed was when McCain came up with his off the cuff idea of a "spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs."  Obama scored points with some by pointing out that a spending freeze is a hatchet when we need a scalpel, and by having examples at the ready.  But he would have scored even bigger if he'd said something along the lines of, "This type of sound-bite, reactionary thinking is exactly the type of leadership we don't need in the 21st Century.  It sounds good on first hearing, but it's completely ineffective in the long term."

Obama did extremely well in arguing foreign policy, showing his leadership ability by broadening the discussion of current economic and world situations beyond the band-aid approaches advocated by McCain.  And I believe that he came off as calmer, better informed and more of a forward thinker than McCain.

Where McCain seemed to do best was attack and belittle Barack Obama. His constant refrain was that "Senator Obama just doesn't understand."  Unfortunately, much of what he said just isn't true and the format allowed him to get away with it.  Obama batted back some of the salvos but would have looked petulant if he'd argued every misstatement and "fact based" inaccuracy.  

Today's polls show that some folks disagree with me, giving the win to Obama.  That makes me happy but doesn't sway my opinion.  The proof will be in the polling numbers next week.  If Obama gains points, he won.  If things stay tight, it was a tie.

In any case, McCain did not win (except among those already voting for him).  The next debate, Obama simply needs to be as prepared and calm as he was today.  Unless McCain's handlers are able to change an old dog in quick fashion, he will continue to come across as condescending, backward looking and peevish.

Which reminds me...some have said that McCain muttered "horseshit" under his breath during part of Obama's comments.  Here's the link.  You decide.


 


Comments

Kenneth R. Morefield

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:14:16

Laura,
Why was Obama's reference to the bracelet a "misstep"? I thought it was a solid counter punch that cut off McCain from his ridiculous claim that we can't withdraw from a conflict because it will mean people will have died in vain. (Unless, of course, that conflict was in Beirut, which McCain was against. In that case, pull out the Marines and let those who died have died in vain.)

Both CNN and CBS polls say that viewers had Obama as the winner amongst undecided voters, even though Foreign Policy was supposed to be McCain's strong suit.

I thought Obama perhaps had a tendency to over answer (yeah, that's me calling the kettle ebony) and he made one concession too near the end that left it as a lingering memory. That said, I thought he did a masterful job of countering McCain's characterizations with specific fact or context that showed them to be political spin rather than substance. (Example--the whole thing about Obama not holding hearings about Afghanistan, Obama pointing out [as McCain well knows] that his subcommittee wouldn't be the appropriate one to do so, and McCain simply repeating the charge a bit later.)

I think the real problem, and why it might not have felt like MORE of a win for Obama, is that it is clear that McCain is running a campaign of distraction, distortion, and evasion and offering nothing substantive. His strategy appears to be to buzz around Obama's more substantive (and certainly more substantively articulated) plans with criticisms in hopes that the electorate and press will put all its efforts into trying to pick apart Obama and not notice that McCain has offered nothing in the way of an alternative vision except more of the same failed Bush rhetoric and policies.

I absolutely disagree that Obama should have gone after Palin when earmarks were raised; leave that to Biden in their own debate. The 600 vs 18 number clearly exposed McCain's rhetoric for what it is--an attempt to claim the results of his party's failed policies are somehow the fault of anything or anyone else and not the fault of deregulation he favored combined with trickle-down economic theory that has been tried and found wanting.

 

Kenneth R. Morefield

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:33:00

P.S. By John McCain's logic, shouldn't we still be fighting in Vietnam?

 

Laura

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:53:05

Hi Ken,

My thought on the bracelet is that it came across more as a political machination than as a genuine motivator for his position. I agree that it took McCain off-course and that it was an effective tit-for-tat...but I suppose I expect Obama to be better than tit-for-tat. In short, I thought it looked shallow.

I reflected some more over the last 24 hours about my calling the debate a "tie." My opinion is not based so much on how it impacted me because I am already committed to Obama and anti-McCain.

Instead I was engaging in a (probably fruitless) exercise of viewing the debate through the eyes of an undecided voter. Given that affected prism, I felt both candidates had equal pros and cons in their performance.

Good point on leaving Palin to Biden...although I hope he doesn't spend too much time attacking her but rather focuses on the substantive differences between their two agenda. Still, I don't think it could hurt Obama to be prepared with that figure in the next few debates.

I thought one of Obama's most effective moments was when he pointed out directly that the current economic crisis is an idictment of the Bush policies that McCain supported--little regulation, tax reductions and trickle down economics.

 

Laura

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:53:34

Sometimes, Ken, I think McCain IS still fighting the Vietnam war.

 

Kenneth R. Morefield

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:03:57

Ed Rollins points out over at CNN.com that over half of the 18 billion dollars in earmarks that McCain focuses on in his claim that he can curb spending are defense projects--one area of the budget he said he wouldn't freeze, much less cut.

 

Laura

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:54:00

That's a great figure, Ken. Thanks for pointing it out.

 



Leave a Reply