Presidential Debate 2 (2008)

These are my immediate reactions to the Presidential debate:

Who made the better impression? I think Obama did. At first, McCain had more of a presence because he was using people's names and walking around the room with apparent ease. That conveyed a sense of interaction, like he was in his nitch! Obama, by contrast, came across initially as a robot. But when Obama smiled at McCain's accusations and nodded his head at people's questions (as well as at things that Senator McCain was saying), he began to appear more human. McCain, on the other hand, started to seem more disoriented. He stumbled over his words and misspoke (e.g., "danger it opposes," "Obama approved storage"). It was like he needed a nap! He started to appear alive again when he pat that veteran on the back in a grandfatherly manner. But, overall, he had stopped making an impression on me after the middle of the debate. He was repeating a lot of the John McCain spiel that I had heard before.

By contrast, I felt like I actually learned stuff from Obama. Maybe he was using his good old law professor skills! At first, he was repeating a lot of the same old Obama spiel: "less regulation got us into this mess," blah, blah, blah. But I was intrigued when he pointed out that America had a $5 trillion debt when Bush came into office. That's something I always wondered about, because I thought Clinton had eliminated the deficit and created a surplus. During the Reagan and Bush years, I had heard about the $4 trillion debt, and I wondered if that was all paid off under Clinton. I guess not. The surplus was probably a balanced budget for a single year, not a wipe-out of the entire federal debt (I'm guessing).

Obama also said something new when he stated that his budget has more reductions than new spending, and that Washington should tighten its belt like most American families. Obama was sounding like Ronald Reagan there! Normally, when I think of Obama, I envision your typical Santa Claus Democrat who talks about spending money on all these new goodies. But Obama actually tried to convey that he was a budget cutter, giving the impression that he is fiscally responsible.

I thought that Obama successfully nullified many of McCain's accusations. When McCain said that Obama wanted to impose a health insurance mandate on small businesses and families, Obama responded that he proposed tax credits to help them out with that. Obama also did a decent job dismissing McCain's "Obama wants to meet the President of Iran without preconditions" charge. Obama pointed out examples where not meeting with leaders led to a disaster. I don't know for sure if things turned out as he emplotted, but McCain didn't present a different interpretation, so I guess Obama won that part. And Obama pointed out when McCain didn't "speak softly" (e.g., bomb Iran, annihilate North Korea). Plus, McCain appeared like he wanted to manipulate Pakistan when he said he didn't want to telegraph his punches to the world.

One area in which Obama didn't really respond to McCain was on the issue of taxes. Obama did not defend his record as a tax increaser. If he did support middle class tax cuts in the Senate, then he should have cited examples of that. McCain delivered a solid punch when he said that Obama has had four or five different tax plans. I wouldn't trust Obama to cut my taxes!

But I think where Obama really shined was that he presented himself as a struggling American. He achieved what Sarah Palin has aimed for. When he talked about his mom dying at 50 because the insurance companies wouldn't cover her "pre-existing condition," he conveyed that he's been touched personally by health care issues. He also said that his mom received food stamps for a while. Even if he's technically wrong on taxes, does he strike people as someone who will deliberately hurt middle-class families? I doubt it.

McCain needed to do exceptionally well in this debate to gain more momentum. But I think that Obama did better, overall. My expectation is that the polls will show that Obama won the debate, and that he'll continue to gain in the polls.

So what should McCain do? Keep on hitting him on taxes. Perhaps he can say that Obama means well, but that his utopian policies will hurt the middle class and result in new spending.

I got the impression today that Obama supports some form of universal health insurance. He called health care a "right," and he said he wants to open up the Congressional health plan to every American. He also stated that people wouldn't pay much because there would be a bigger pool. He's obviously expecting a lot of people to enter the government system! As Obama tries to present his health care plan as a middle ground between socialized medicine and laissez-faire, McCain should point out that Obama's system leans more in the direction of government health insurance. And Sarah Palin should be talking about her experiences as a middle class American struggling with health care. She should discuss how a plan that focuses on the private sector and competition would have helped her family.

McCain has a lot of ground that he needs to gain. Can he do it?