Presidential Debate: Round 2

I know that, but was this the place to become, um, elitist? No need for it.

Obama's best answers tonight were on public sacrifice (missed opportunity after 9/11) and health care deregulation (made that brilliant point about state lines and how all the companies flock to the state with the loosest rules). I'll need the transcript to elaborate, but this is a little reminder to myself.

Well gosh darn it is he running for President of the USA or of Pakistan? If he wants to be an American President for Americans he should just pronounce it the American way! Where do his allegiances really lie, anyway??

For the same reason I wouldn't refer to you as realJaneboy if I was hoping to successfully negotiate with you. Why would you object to a correct pronunciation? Why would anybody?

It's not a or the correct pronunciation, Bill.

Well, jokes aside, he wasnt negotiating with Pakistanis now. He was speaking to Americans.

Not that I care how he pronounces it, but this seems like a silly argument in his defence. The Pakistanis dont care how he pronounces Pakistan at a domestic election debate.

You think? The way some Americans decide their own American way to pronounce foreign names annoys us non-Americans quite a lot, only we're usually too polite to complain. It's extremely arrogant.
And this domestic debate is being broadcast live worldwide, because the outcome effects us all.

Hmm. I never expected my quip about Pockistan vs Packistan to have any follow up. My concern was that Obama would fall into a trap of being too professorial, too elitist.
As it turns out, this debate was a draw as far as I score it. A few plusses and minuses for each of them, but no big score for either of them.

I loved it when Obama quoted McCain's "bomb Iran," and "Up next, Baghdad," as examples of not talking softly.

You're haggling about how he says Pakistan? wtf?!?

Seems about as relevant as boxers or briefs.

So which is it, Snood, Bx's or Br's?

Really? How fascinating.

Of course none of you furriners has ever pronounced any American names in your own foreign way, such that it annoys us Americans. Or maybe you have, and we're simply much too arrogant to give a crap about it.

IMO, Obama was so much more presidential.

McCains voice and cadence was condescending. I understand he was probably trying to control himself, control his voice to come across as controlled / in control of himself, but that just made it more evident that he has to work at such a thing. Not good.

At one time the camera from the side showed John walking towards the audience on Obama's side and the side view of him walking (waist up) really jumped out to me that he was walking like a very old man.

The "this one" address of Obama was extremely rude.

But did you know, squiney, that Obama is Bi-Polar? Yes, he is. Ever since Jesse threatened to cut off his testicles!

Just returned from the watch party. It was a nice place, I was easily the youngest person there. Most were (by my speculation) were in their 40s or 50s. A mix of both republicans and democrats, though I sensed a larger presence of democrats by ratio.

Opinions:

Obama
He had good answers and the theme for the night seemed to be "proactivity" instead of old-time-bush reactionism/retroactivity. This was smart but he seemed to struggle with his rhythm at times. Once he got his feet dug in he was good, but the beginnings of his statements caused the audience confusion I think. I worry that some would not be able to focus on his answer; a style versus content problem. Additionally, I think he struggled to manage his response time, but there are worse problems to be had. Obama did call out McCain on a few things like the "bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" comment. In general did well to define his policies while mixing in the teeth.

McCain
He was on the attack all night. He made lots of claims about Obama which come morning and fact-check time may come back to haunt him. Additionally he gaffed a few times asserting that the man in the audience may not have heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (an assumption on intelligence?) or his reference to Obama as "this one" to name a few that come to mind. Despite showing his teeth, he repeated the same attacks and then repeated the same attacks and then believe it or not repeated the same attacks. From a psychological standpoint, that may have some merit, but otherwise, I think he lost out on some valuable media air time to diversify his arguments. McCain did excellent however in using the format of the debate to his advantage. He seemed pretty natural, and even shock one of the audience member's hands (I'm not sure if that was allowed but I think it tracked well).

In general
...after the spin rooms, I think that tonight was not Obama's best night. In terms of style versus content, he won in content, but I think that his struggle with the format may have hurt him. Being that last week nobody had real expectations for Palin and then she did better than expected, I wonder if the same story will happen for Barack being that the expectations were lower for the townhall format? Going into the debate with a 5.5% (Obama 49.6% and McCain 44.1%) spread on RCP, I'd wager that McCain could tighten the gap by maybe 1-2%. Not a game changer for McCain, but Obama didn't do well to close the race either. McCain has one week to figure out how to gain the momentum he needs to win, otherwise, I think his chances for the oval office will pass by.

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Meanwhile Palin calls it "nuke-yu-lur" power.

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I have to confess that I missed the first half hour of it. I had the tv on and was listening to the hype from the talking heads before the debate started and it put me to sleep. Luckily I woke up soon enough to have only missed the first half hour. From what I saw of the rest of the debate, I didn't miss much and should have just gone back to sleep.

Neither one of them said anything particularly revealing about themselves or the other guy. Neither one of them made any strong positive or negative points about themselves or the other guy. Neither one of them were particularly reassuring or convincing about much of anything and didn't offer any new insights.

Obama didn't lose anything by the blandness of the debate. He won the pre-debate parrying that probably resulted in the blandness of the debate itself. McCain lost one of his few remaining opportunities to demonstrate the erratic impressions we got of him from the last two weeks were an anomaly. He won the post-debate hedging by enabling the talking heads to focus on how well-behaved he was during the debate as compared to he and his VP's nasty demeanor in the last few days of stumping.

And while he was walking, he looked really old.

That's because he is really old