Debates

Cynthia and I watched the debate from beginning to end, on C-Span — no talking heads for us. McCain came out at the beginning as sharp, clear, and focused, a better communicator than Obama. But that didn’t last long. After a while it was clear that at least Obama had thoughtful, well-constructed answers, especially under the time constraints and the fact that responses were not allowed, although Obama managed to get a few in anyway. It became clear that McCain was lying a lot of the time, or simply mis-informed. Obama may have been gilding the lily a little but at least he had trains of thought in his answers. McCain tended to jump around a lot, and kept opening with “My friends” which came across as phony after a while. His worse moment was when he thought he was being cute with that snide side-pointing at Obama as “that one”. Of course, I’ve been reading what others have been saying: Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, NYT editorial, plus several more in this vein. The snap polls have all given the debate to “That One” by a solid margin.

Down here in front of my computer I watched the entire debate last night at the U. of Texas between Hillary and Barack. Cynthia didn’t want to watch it on TV upstairs because she wouldn’t be able to stand it, she said. She’s strongly for Clinton. So she stayed upstairs and read.

I’m liking Obama more and more, not only because I think he has a better chance of beating McCain, but because he’s proving himself presidential more and more, like he did in the debate last night. Hillary did well in the debate, too, and her closing remarks were nothing short of magnificent. I’m not one of those who subscribes to Hillary’s public persona as rigid and fake. I’ve read that in private she’s likable and outgoing, and I believe she probably is.

But of course, she’s a politician, just like Obama. Politicians have to be actors on the public stage. And they get interpreted and stereotyped by the media and the talking heads. That’s why I turned the debate right off at the end rather than listen to the talking heads discuss it, but I did scan their opinions this morning.

Most say it was a draw and I agree. The negatives were the bit about plagiarism, which, with Obama, I agree is just silly, and the bit about the Obama speeches being Xerox copies, which is also ridiculous. The rest of the debate, the large majority of it in fact, was very civil and stuck to discussion of issues.

On the health care issues, although I see the point many make about mandates, Obama may be right in that mandates are not all they’re cracked up to be (witness Massachusetts) plus getting them through congress will be daunting even if a Democratic majority gets elected. Obama’s approach, being more flexible, might actually get something passed in the way of significant health care reform.

So, to conclude, I thought they were both great, that the debate was civil for the most part, and that it was probably a draw. Actually, Hillary may pick up a few points because of her Eureka moment at the end. We’ll see.

See here for details on the controversy surrounding the “diamonds or pearls” question a girl asked Hilary Clinton at the close of the debate Thursday night. Apparently, CNN chose the question but the girl chose to ask it. Here’s the video:

Pretty tacky question. Good response from Hilary.

I watched the entire Democratic debate last night and came away more annoyed with Wolf Blitzer than with any of the candidates. His arrogant, yet sanctimonious manner was over the top. For example, he kept demanding a choice between “Human rights or national security” in Pakistan, as though everybody knows that cracking down on Musharrif will endanger national security there, when in fact the people Musharrif is cracking down on are in no way the Taliban or Al Qeada, instead they are middle class people, while the tribes run free in the north, barely touched by the Pakistan army. I think Obama may have explained this the best, but most candidates had to waste time warding off Wolf’s simplistic question by trying to clarify the situation in various ways while he kept demanding an either-or answer.

Eric Alterman is going to do a Nation column next week on the debate but here’s his response to it today:

I’m going to do my Nation column this week about last night’s debate, but one thing I found particularly offensive, aside from the atrocious questioning, was, from the standpoint of sitting in the audience, the way CNN producers purposely ginned up the crowd to cheer over and over, as if they were pom-pommed cheerleaders at a high school pep rally. This is a ridiculously immature manner in which to conduct an alleged debate on the nation’s future, but it also interfered with the debate itself, as a bunch of rowdies in the crowd felt empowered to shout over the candidates’ answers. Overall, it was an abysmal performance, but I’ll have more ordered thoughts later in the week. I thought Joe Biden “won” the debate by the way, not that it matters… The loser was Wolf Blitzer.

I’ll be looking forward to Eric’s column next week.

UPDATE: Jamison Foser has a great analysis of the debate moderators lack of asking key questions here. Here’s the lead paragraph:

Through 17 debates this year, roughly 1,500 questions have been asked of the two parties’ presidential candidates. But only a small handful of questions have touched on the candidates’ views on executive power, the Constitution, torture, wiretapping, or other civil liberties concerns. (A description of those questions appears at the end of this column.)