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Watching the debate live as I did yesterday, sadly increasing the hit count of the repugnant Fox News Channel's website (which incidentally was festooned with prominent McCain/Palin ads during yesterday's debate, but none supporting Obama/Biden, shockingly enough), what struck me was difference in the questions asked by the members of the public in the audience, and the sheer inanities brought up by host Tom Brokaw.
The public concerns surrounded the financial crisis and how each candidate would ensure that they would have the means to pay the bills. One woman asked the excellent question of whether healthcare should be regarded as a right, a privilege or a responsibility; McCain, showing the agility of a tranquilized rhinoceros, stated 'a responsibility' - bad call when Americans are struggling to pay their medical bills; Obama: 'a right'.
That good piece of manoeuvering aside, Obama was not the outstanding star many have trumpeted him as being. At times he was stilted when forced to think fast, and while he is certainly charismatic, next to McCain, Obama is Wildean by comparison.
It also intrigued me how little the campaign managers seem to get the fact that there is no such thing as a 'home audience' anymore for these debates. The ability to stream live coverage online anywhere in the world means foreign policy rhetoric that is tailored for a domestic audience will be seen and digested by people across the globe who have interests in what the next US President is going top do in the world.
So, Obama's advocacy of entering Pakistani territory to hunt Al-Qaeda with not so much as a 'by your leave', and McCain's dismissal of the UN as an 'obstacle' to US interests did not do either favours with this observer.
Then of course, the evening was rounded off with Brokaw's most ridiculous question of the evening - "Is Putin's Russia an 'Evil Empire'?" Obama replied that Russia has "engaged in evil behaviour," while the leaden-footed McCain could only muster a "maybe".
The latest polling suggests Obama improved his lead after yesterday's performance; perhaps this is more due to the McCain campaign's current implosion rather than the virtues of the Democrat candidate.
Best of Web November 6th
3 hours ago
1 comments:
Nice analysis of the presidential debate. The McCain campaign is simply falling apart right now so I'm surprised Obama doesn't have an even larger lead in the polls. Like you say, the gap that is there is more due to the Republican's collapse rather than some sort or knock out by the Democrat.
As I watched the debate it looked as if Obama was playing it safe (which is understandable to a point) while getting at McCain on a couple of occasions. I particularly liked when Obama responded to McCain's attack that he's inexperienced and not responsible enough because of his stance on Pakistan by pointing out McCain was the one who joked about bomb-bomb-bombing Iran and called for the annihilation of N. Korea.
But his best moment was a similar response to the issue of inexperience where he admitted he didn't get it.
In the end though Obama held back and didn't finish his opponent off they way he seemed he could have. God it's hard not to use fighting metaphors when talking about these things.
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