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The Last Presidential Debate

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Sorry, folks. I didn’t really watch the last Presidential debate so I can’t offer any insight as to who won and who lost. In my book, McCain won the first two and Palin vs. Biden was a draw or slightly in Palin’s favor given the amount of misinformation that Senator Biden put out there. But as for this last Presidential debate – frankly it’s all the same stuff over and over again with different words.

The election is in the hands on the media now, so we’ll likely see a build-up in Obama’s numbers heading into November. The media has anointed Senator Obama as the next President and that’s fine so long as America understands that we have a biased media and unless there are drastic changes (like the increasingly influence of an independent media through online channels), then we’re doomed. A news channel that would simply report factual news or even both sides of the same issues would be a huge success in this country. Oh wait, we already have FOX News and the brainwashed extremists think that it’s biased in favor of Republicans.

Isn’t weird how some Americans will ask for something, get it, and then condemn it?

Another Debate with More of the Same

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Last night we had another debate between Senators McCain and Obama and it was pretty much more of the same. If you have to declare a winner, I’d have to go with McCain because the format really allowed him to engage with a national television audience in a way that he hasn’t been able to yet. Plus I thought the format really worked against Obama’s strength as a talking point reciter (not that being a talking point reciter is a bad thing, but it’s essentially all that Obama does). But everyone knows how these things go – the media will list Obama as the winner and cite McCain’s inability to slam a homerun during one of the debates.

Thank God I have an independent mind of my own to make up my own decisions! The amount of bias in the media these days is scary.

Anyway, if you really want to declare a winner last night it might have to be Tom Brokaw. Talk about a guy who managed to annoy almost everyone watching by being the only one who was doing his job correctly! That’s got to be a tough position for someone to be in – the straight man between two candidates for Presidents. And was it just me or did Brokaw look extremely white, pale, and aged?

All in all the debate was more bore than anything else. Neither of these candidates is going to put themselves out there and make a major statement during the debates, though McCain almost did with his statement regarding the Treasury buying up all of the bad mortgage debt out there. I am not a fan of this at all – nor am I a fan of this ridiculous bailout (which has so far led to the market falling further).

The real shame of our times is that neither McCain nor Obama have what it takes to fix the economy, yet these are the two choices that we are given. Third party anyone?

Anyway, check out Jersey City Locksmith for the best locksmith service in the Garden State!

Who Won the First Presidential Debate?!?

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Alright, you guys know the way this process goes every four years. There’s a debate between two candidates over a variety of issues and each campaign claims victory afterward. The media generally sides with the Democratic candidate and their claim of success while the internet becomes akin to the wild, wild West. From where I sat, it was McCain’s night on all fronts.

In terms of style and presentation, McCain is a better off-the-cuff speaker than Obama is – no questions there. This is why Obama refused the various town hall debates with McCain over the summer months. As a speaker, Obama is overly reliant on long pauses as well as “ummm,” “aaaahh,” and “ii…iii…iii,” sounds in between his statements. For those debaters out there, you know that this can sometimes be an unconscious reaction to an unclear mental state or a confusion in train of thought. Hell, I do it quite frequently while I teach! It happens and, unfortunately for Obama, I didn’t like the way he came off while saying it.

In terms of content, Obama had a great point when he said that McCain would give even greater tax breaks to the wealthy. On the flip side, McCain decimated Obama during the Iran discussion when he suggested that the American President would not sit down with the Iranian President without preconditions.

But when it got down to discussions of military strategy (not tactics, mind you), McCain trumped Obama on almost every point. I’m not saying that I agree with every single thing that McCain said, but he absolutely won the debate. To me, it seemed that Obama sometimes got caught in saying anything in order to win the immediate debate. In other words, I heard some contradictions in his speeches that I’m sure none of the media will bring up (as soon as a transcript is available, I’ll try to flesh some of this out in a future post).

In terms of actually putting policy specifics out on the table, Obama failed though this is par for his course. Obama never really speaks in specifics and that’s because he’s still trying to be all things to all people. He will do himself and his campaign a great favor when he starts laying out specifics in terms of his policy. Simply saying that everyone making $250,000 and above will have their taxes raised isn’t good enough. He has to acknowledge that the more you tax a business, the less chance that business has of hiring more employees and increasing the wages of its workers.

Oh, and did anyone notice that Obama suggested a few times throughout the night that he agreed with McCain’s stance on certain issues? McCain only said that Obama was too inexperienced or that he didn’t understand certain issues. Just something interesting that I picked up on.

There was another thing that I didn’t like (and this is really me scolding the country, not the politicians). At one point, Obama said that McCain was wrong when he supported going into Iraq and wrong about the weapons of mass destruction. Talk about a distortion of reality. First and foremost, weapons of mass destruction WERE found in Iraq! Nuclear weapons were not found, but hundreds of chemical weapons were found. These are also weapons of mass destruction! Second, let’s not forget that almost every national politician supported going into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein in 2003. To look back five years later and say, “What a bad decision,” does nothing to put the decision in a historical perspective.

The last thing that I’ll say about the debate is that Jim Lehrer did a decent job as moderator and I enjoyed the new back-and-forth format. Jim Lehrer is one of those old school newsmen who doesn’t realize that he’s blatantly partisan while on the air, but I thought he did a good job as moderator. Now, as for Ray Suarez who had the hosting duties on PBS – that’s another story! Talk about a biased, defeatist person…

Finally, I just wanted to point out that I tried to log-on to PickensPlan.com after the debate to be a part of his online chat room or discussion or whatever it was and I couldn’t get on his site! If you’re going to spend the money on airtime to promote an online discussion, then have the bandwidth to handle the capacity! Also, while I was flipping around the television after the debate, I found it funny that both ABC News and CNN were advertising their political coverage on FOX News. Kinda funny when you think about it.

Anyway – what do you think? Who won the debate?

The RNC Ends And The Real Campaign Begins

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Thursday night was the final night of the Republican National Convention and Senator John McCain gave his acceptance speech. While his speech was not as thrilling or electric as any of the other main players in this election, I thought he performed well. Senator Barack Obama’s speech was more emotional and Senator Joe Biden’s gave a great attack speech. Governor Sarah Palin gave a more exciting, electrifying, and attacking speech than McCain, but I think McCain telling the story of his Vietnam experience made his speech much more personal than the rest.

Still, his speech would rank fourth of the speeches listed above. But not a generic fourth, more like an Olympic fourth – you know, where everyone finishes the event within the same half-second.

Both the RNC and the DNC were good events. However, aside from the tradition of holding these events every four years, I think we’d all agree that there isn’t anything really “big” decided at Conventions any more. In fact, one of the biggest highlights of these events is that they signal the impending end of the Presidential campaigns!

America is tired from a far too long Presidential campaign. We had people putting themselves into the exploratory committee process as far as two years ago. Yuck! Whether we get McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden, I do not think we are getting the best that America has to offer. That said, let’s hope that we get the best this campaign has to offer and that this campaign is out of our heads soon!

Wednesday Night’s RNC Speeches – Palin Overwhelms

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Governor Sarah Palin absolutely overwhelmed the Republican National Convention last night with one of the best speeches of this political season. What was impressive about this was not just her amazing poise, grace, and precision in delivering the speech, but the fact that it followed a rousing series of former Presidential candidates who threatened to steal the show! Mayor Rudy Giuliani hit a major homerun with his speech much like President Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention last week.

I would equate the Huckabee and Romney speeches to the brilliance of Senator Hillary Clinton’s speech at the DNC. They were powerful, effective, and served their respective purposes.

The talking heads on television kept repeating that “a star was born” during Palin’s speech. One of the channels had Howard Wolfson (former leader in the Hillary Clinton campaign) who suggested that Barack Obama bring his A-game to combat the McCain-Palin ticket. In fact, Wolfson had nothing but positive words to say about Palin to the extent that it was almost awkward.

Palin’s line of the night: “Some people use change to advance their careers, others use their careers to advance change.” WOW! Talk about knocking home a grand slam! That line will probably be the best line to come out of the entire convention and possibly this entire campaign (on both sides). Amazing – absolutely gorgeous speech writing.

Now, whether you agree with that ideology or not is up to you, but I thought Governor Palin’s speech was perfect. And I’m glad that those stupid Greek columns were bashed – man, I hated those things!

But let’s not overlook Rudy and his contribution tonight. He made such a great speech that I was very concerned about anyone’s ability to follow him. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand and even his off-the-cuff comments were dead on accurate. The most memorable part of his speech had to be when he mentioned that Senator Barack Obama was a community organizer and he giggled afterwards – drawing a similar reaction from the crowd. His comment of, “What?” was the perfect accent to the crowd’s reaction.

However, I’m not very comfortable with people bashing the concept of being a community organizer. I actually DO know what a community organizer is and what they do on a daily basis and it’s a much-needed occupation in many of the downtrodden places of our nation. That said, I’ve seen and worked with a large number of community organizers in my current and previous careers and organizing communities is NOT a good foundation to build a Presidential campaign on. Granted, the Obama folks have never made this claim, but the Republicans have masterfully made his previous occupation an issue. Good move.

All in all I think the Republicans have had a great convention even though it got off to a slow start. And I can’t reiterate enough how showstopping Governor Palin was in her speech. Brilliant.