If you happened to miss the first presidential debate last night, I have some advice for you: If you read any of the analyses out there today, take them with a mountain of salt.
I spent three hours this morning reading so-called analyses and have yet to find one that even remotely borders on objective and impartial. Everybody's a homer. To the Left and the MSM, Obama clearly won with his natural brilliance. To the Right, McCain 'crushed' Obama with ease.
And pigs can fly.
Despite what appears to be a deeply-seated human need for a 'winner' in every contest, I don't see debates that way. And, given how the Lefties all saw Obama as the winner and the Righties all saw McCain as the winner, I'd say that feeling is somewhat justified.
However, if you demanded a verdict from me, I'd call it a draw. Here's how I saw them balancing out:
- McCain used the phrase "What Senator Obama doesn't understand is..." a number of times to great effect, then launching into a mini-tutorial on just what Big O doesn't understand. This was the primary point the Righties were crowing about this morning, and it was obviously the basic strategy employed by Team McCain. As I said, it was extremely effective. By the third or fourth time, it actually tilted the event from "debate" slightly toward "lecture" in a very subliminal, but powerful, way. In the lexicon of the day, it was downright Rovian.
- On the other hand, Obama has a much better stage presence, stands tall and erect, shows passion when he needs to and has a voice that's ten times more presidential-sounding than McCain's. Yes, yes, I understand that to a pundit these are all 'empty suit' gestures, but I don't care how pundits view it. They're smart enough to nuance the discrepancies; the average American voter is not. Half the people who watched it probably saw a doddering old man past his prime and the energy and passion of the young bull ready to take the lead, and the other half saw a calm and experienced elder statesman lecturing the young pup on the basics, grooming him for his own presidency four years hence. The intricate details of the subject matter that the bloggers blather on about are lost on the average joe.
They both upset their base in (at least) two ways:
- McCain reminded us that he's a total wuss when it comes to good old-fashioned torture, and reminded us that the poor polar bears are dying by the thousands and we need to take drastic action immediately. (he didn't actually mention the polar bears by name — I'm just extrapolating)
- Obama made some fairly strong statements regarding the military, something along the lines of "If we have to take military action, we will!" I'm sure that went over big with the anti-war crowd. He then floored the greenies by saying something like "And, yes, we need to develop nuclear power," with the "yes" aimed directly at the anti-nuke crowd, as in, "Yes, you morons, we need to..."
McCain certainly upset some people when he came out against ethanol but, by the same token, probably drew cheers from those who have watched food prices skyrocket over the past year and understand why they have.
On the flip side, they both came out strongly for 'alternative energy', which means they're either idiots or they're pandering — if not a little of both. Twenty, thirty, forty years from today, articles will be saying the same thing about solar energy and wind power and geothermal energy that they said ten, twenty, thirty years ago: "It's just around the corner!" The simple truth is that Newton was right: energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted. And there simply isn't enough raw energy in solar radiation or the wind to produce anything remotely resembling an energy source ready to power a nation of 300 million, much less the world.
In regards to the actual topics of the debate, foreign policy and (added because of its pertinence) the current economic crisis, I'd call it boringly even. Only the pundits were interested in the economic details, and droning on about Iraq is just so five minutes ago. The discussion about Iran was interesting, but I call 'disingenuous' on McCain for his rambling on about how "we will not allow" Iran to possess nuclear arms, knowing that we probably won't have the guts to actually bomb them back to the Stone Age. In regards to Pakistan, Obama came off as more hawkish than McCain when he said that if he had intel that pinpointed ol' Osama's whereabouts, he'd fry his ass no matter where he was.
As a small side note, one thing that was quite strange was the lack of applause. I could hear rustling and murmurs in the background, so it appeared there was an audience of sorts, but they never once applauded even though there were a number of clap-worthy moments. I missed the first ten minutes of the debate so I didn't hear the ground rules, but apparently what audience was there was told to shut the hey up. While I find applause somewhat annoying, at least it adds an element of spontaneity and communication with the audience.
Interestingly, Team McCain has already produced a debate video showing Obama saying "I agree with John..." a handful of times, and indicating this isn't what presidents are made of.
Personally, I like a candidate who can openly reach across the aisle and agree with the opposition.
Don't you?
What the video does is prove that Obama really is the post-partisan candidate. I'm guessing that's not the message the clever authors of the video had in mind, but that's what it implies. Judge for yourself.
And I can guess the thought that went through many, if not most, of those who tuned in:
Damn! We've still got another week to go for the good stuff!
While I haven't seen the stats, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that last night's debate was the most-watched debate ever.
But next week?
I casually predict that umpteen millions of people who have never watched more than five minutes of a presidential debate in their lives will be tuning in to watch Sarah Palin. I predict we'll see the word "unprecedented" used the next day in regards to the ratings. While last night's debate was certainly interesting, next week's debate will fall into the category of 'entertaining' — and that, for a presidential debate, is certainly unprecedented.
See you there!
This is directed to those of you planning on watching the Palin-Biden debate tonight at 9 EDT. It's the only debate they'll have.This is a warning. As you know, we here at Maggie's Farm advocate the peaceful, bucolic life. Why, just this morning as BD w
Tracked: Oct 02, 02:28