Obama missed an opportunity to show an FDR streak on the economic crisis. He could have explained the credit meltdown to the American people and how it will effect them. With some sense of savvy, he could have done so without sounding condescending and pedantic. This would have gone a little way toward building greater popular support for something that is wildly unpopular among regular people but necessary for the health of the country. Instead, he listed his principles for the plan, which I don't think was particularly necessary. He should have explained how these principles apply to regular people, instead of just listing them. He also didn't have a good "I feel your pain" moment. I did like this, though:
On foreign policy, Obama echoed Kennedy in 1960. How did Kennedy compensate for his lack of experience compared to Nixon? He spoke continuously about how America was less safe by falling behind in the "missile gap". Although this was untrue, Kennedy's tough-on-communism stance made him a respectable choice for middle America. Obama is trying to do the same thing with the Afghanistan issue. In it, he frames McCain as being weak on terror by avoiding the real threat there. He does the same thing with the Pakistan issue, in which he says McCain coddles Pakistan's dictatorial government while al-Qaeda flourishes within its borders. On the other hand, Obama supports diplomacy with Iran and other such nations as well as a concerted effort to improve US standing in the world. His biggest weakness here is his inability to easily explain what he means by sitting down with foreign leaders without preconditions. Overall, however, much like 1960, the distance between the two candidates is not as great as it should be on foreign policy. Obama is playing to center. His tough stance against Russia is also problematic, as is his call for a buildup of troops in Afghanistan. (Don't get me started about "missile defense".) What we have to hope is that some of this is pandering rhetoric and will not be turned into policy in an Obama administration.
On the other side, McCain seemed obsessed with the earmark issue to the point that he came off more senatorial than presidential. (Five straight responses from him were about earmarks, which make up less than 2% of the budget but nearly 15% of his debate time. And this is a foreign policy debate, mind you.) He seems more comfortable in this terrain (earmarks, cost-plus bills, commissions). If I were Obama, I would have said, "John, you have a great handle on the details of the Senate, and I look forward to working with you during my administration to get things done in a bipartisan manner." McCain's consistent rebuttal to Obama's foreign policy remarks were along of the lines of "but I've been to (country) many times and Obama has not". I'm not sure this experience argument flies when Biden has been to all of those countries as well, and Palin never left the U.S. until last year. He also likes to use patriotic anecdotes about soldiers sacrificing for their country, from himself to Eisenhower to Vietnam vets to soldiers in Iraq. The underlying message is always that the Iraq occupation should not be fought in vain, and that we should stay there until we can proclaim victory. Beside earmarks, Iraq (and with it, unconditional love for General Patraeus) is McCain's chief issue. He didn't win the argument on either tonight.
One final note: McCain's rhetoric on Russia was paranoid and hinted at a further disintegration of relations with them if he becomes president.
The verdict (I lied earlier): Obama underperformed on the economic crisis issue but still managed to best John "earmark" McCain. Obama, while too hawkish, did well during the foreign policy side of the debate but wasn't perfect enough to fully match McCain. For the neutral observer, McCain had a slight edge in the second half. Obama was more likable, but McCain was more emotive. Overall, a tie, but one which benefits Obama. (Very similar to the Kennedy/Nixon debate in 1960.)
Obama
As populist:
Award for accurate tax policy analysis:
Just one last point I want to make, since Senator McCain talked about providing a $5,000 health credit. Now, what he doesn't tell you is that he intends to, for the first time in history, tax health benefits.
So you may end up getting a $5,000 tax credit. Here's the only problem: Your employer now has to pay taxes on the health care that you're getting from your employer. And if you end up losing your health care from your employer, you've got to go out on the open market and try to buy it.
It is not a good deal for the American people. But it's an example of this notion that the market can always solve everything and that the less regulation we have, the better off we're going to be.
Pretty Good Metaphor:
The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are under funded. I went to increase early childhood education and the notion that we should freeze that when there may be, for example, this Medicare subsidy doesn't make sense.
Maverick? What Maverick?
I just want to make this point, Jim. John, it's been your president who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time who presided over this increase in spending. This orgy of spending and enormous deficits you voted for almost all of his budgets. So to stand here and after eight years and say that you're going to lead on controlling spending and, you know, balancing our tax cuts so that they help middle class families when over the last eight years that hasn't happened I think just is, you know, kind of hard to swallow.
Highest-polling attack:
And so John likes -- John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shia and Sunni. And you were wrong.
Scary proposition for future policy:
And the problem, John, with the strategy that's been pursued was that, for 10 years, we coddled Musharraf, we alienated the Pakistani population, because we were anti-democratic. We had a 20th-century mindset that basically said, "Well, you know, he may be a dictator, but he's our dictator."
---- Does this mean that we are going to challenge the dictatorships of the Middle-East (Saudi Arabia, for example) in order to be pro-democracy and seek to get the population on our side. This would be an interesting policy.
Weird response that I really like:
Jim, let me just make a point. I've got a bracelet, too
---- I like the way that Obama mocked McCain's use of a sob story to justify his Iraq position. Risky move.
In the meantime, bin Laden is still out there. He is not captured. He is not killed. Al Qaida is resurgent.
McCain
Hypocrisy?
And we have former members of Congress now residing in federal prison because of the evils of this earmarking and pork-barrel spending. You know, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana.
--- Sarah Palin's Alaska received a $3 million earmark to study the DNA of seals.
This is a good proposal:
Back in 1983, when I was a brand-new United States congressman, the one -- the person I admired the most and still admire the most, Ronald Reagan, wanted to send Marines into Lebanon.
And I saw that, and I saw the situation, and I stood up, and I voted against that, because I was afraid that they couldn't make peace in a place where 300 or 400 or several hundred Marines would make a difference. Tragically, I was right: Nearly 300 Marines lost their lives in the bombing of the barracks.
--- McCain wasn't even in Congress when the vote to commit troops to Lebanon was passed. He did support ending the commitment, but this was after the bombing.
Oft-repeated line that polled poorly:
Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand....
--- If Obama's performance shows that he does, in fact, understand, then these just look like a baseless attacks. They polled poorly among independents.
Nope:
The point is that throughout history, whether it be Ronald Reagan, who wouldn't sit down with Brezhnev, Andropov or Chernenko until Gorbachev was ready with glasnost and perestroika....
---- Reagan tried to sit down with those Russian leaders (whose McCain, to his credit, named correctly and in order), but they died before he could make it happen. And he met with Gorbachev before glasnost and perestroika.
Pathetic ploy to the Republican base:
I don't even have a seal yet.
---- This is a reference to the pseudo-Presidential seal that Obama had emblazoned on his speaking podium while on the campaign trial. The right used its presence to call Obama presumptuous (read: uppity).
Tacit recognition that Bush has committed war crimes:
And we've got to -- to make sure that we have people who are trained interrogators so that we don't ever torture a prisoner ever again.
The Award for Chutzpah:
And I -- and I honestly don't believe that Senator Obama has the knowledge or experience and has made the wrong judgments in a number of areas, including his initial reaction to Russian invasion -- aggression in Georgia, to his -- you know, we've seen this stubbornness before in this administration to cling to a belief that somehow the surge has not succeeded and failing to acknowledge that he was wrong about the surge is -- shows to me that we -- that -- that we need more flexibility in a president of the United States than that.
Addendum
On what issues does Senator Obama "agree" that McCain is "right":
- more responsibility in Washington
- a reduction in wasteful earmarks
- lobbyists often push for earmarks
- business taxes -- on paper -- are high
- cuts in wasteful spending must be made
- efforts by US troops has reduced violence in Iraq
- presidents should be prudent in their use of language
- negotiations with rogue states are difficult
- we cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran*
- the Russia situation*
- the importance of energy independence
*McCain is actually wrong on these things
What Obama doesn't "understand"/"won't acknowledge", according to McCain:
- the difference between a tactic and a strategy
- that we are winning in Iraq*
- that a surge needs to be employed in Afghanistan, as it was in Iraq*
- why the surge was so successful
- that Pakistan was a failed state in the late-1990s*
- the adverse effect that "defeat" in Iraq will have on Afghanistan*
- that foreign leaders are trying to sucker him into sitting down with them for propaganda purposes*
- that Russia committed serious aggression against Georgia*
- that if we fail in Iraq, al-Qaeda wins*
