What? Oh, sorry. I must have fallen asleep.
Worst. Debate. Ever.
Town Hall? Half the questions were straight from Tom Brokaw.
Debate? The best moment was when the two candidates briefly wrestled control from the moderator and actually, you know, debated with each other. If only the entire debate could have been like that.
One hilarious thing happened at the end. McCain and Obama were were doing the post event handshake and they got in the way of Tom Brokaw's teleprompter. That was funny. But, you know? These debates aren't supposed to be funny. They're supposed to give voters a glimpse at how the candidates would handle things. And this debate was a miserable failure in that respect. At least in the first debate it seemed that Jim Lehrer was asking questions because he wanted to hear the answers. He tried to get the candidates to respond to each other. I don't want to be too hard on Tom Brokaw — because apparently the campaigns agreed to the completely stupid restrictions he was just trying to enforce — but it makes me angry that time limits seemed to be his biggest concern.
I have to agree with the pundits who say that Obama was the clear winner of this debate. But do voters even care about this stuff? My guess is that most people made up their minds a long time ago.
I was completely surprised by one idea from John McCain: Let's give everyone a house!
I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes...
What? Are you kidding me? It reminded me of something that Joe Biden said in the vice presidential debate:
...we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you're paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal that you owe.[my emphasis]
Oh, and I finally managed to catch Wolf Blitzer's explanation of the audience response meter. It's dials. (It would have been really cool to have the focus group sit in an MRI and watch different parts of their brains light up during the debate. Although the pattern would probably mimic that of a narcoleptic patient.)
2 comments:
Don't forget the drama created by McCain's choice to refer to Obama as "that one." I guess the media doesn't have much to work with...
Some people I know have chosen to create a drinking game out of watching the debates. Key terms that come up: my friends, main street, joe six pack, maverick (but only if you're prepared to get drunk)
Take a drink whenever:
McCain gets his argument back on track by saying, "The point is..."
Obama shakes his head and says, "Look..."
Either one says, "The fundamental difference..."
But be careful: By my count, those three phrases would get you two dozen drinks in the second presidential debate.
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