McCain vs. Obama Debate Live Discussion
 

Okay... I'm sitting here waiting for the debate. I didn't think I was so interested in watching it, but with all the finance stuff going on... I'm a bit more interested in what they have to say.

So me, Skogafoss and the MIL have some Italian pasteries from Rocco's Pastery Shop in Greenwich Village...

Ty, I had forgotten honestly since normally I wouldn't have been home. When does it start again?

EDIT: Also, we doing this in the chatroom? I'm there :D I'm watching nbc...is there a better station for this?

Both had nice intros. Props to both of them.

"Fundamentally"

I'm chowing down on a fat burrito from Qdoba, yum yum, and watching it live. We walked by a local coffee shop with a TV at 6, and I was surprised to see it was packed with college students watching! Amazing!

Damn it.... I wasn't watching the time...only missed the first 20 minutes...

I didn't know a lot of these jabs he's giving at Obama. This debate honestly is giving me a lot of the 'other side' that I haven't been hearing.

That being said, I still think I prefer Obama's tax program.

Just finished breakfast and watching live on cnn.

McCain is really focused on those earmarks. It's like he's only got one note.

Each of them are focused on their own points it seems to me.

they should focus on their points... that is the point.

Ouch. xD.

So who do you think has the better stance on Iraq? McCain wants to 'win', Obama wants to gtfo and worry about ourselves first.

Honestly I'm with Obama because I've read that the Iraqi government has asked us three times now to kindly wipe our feet on the way out, and we're refusing. Smacks of imperialism to me if we keep on remaining.

I want to see blood already - no more of this pussyfooting.

Who do you think has the better composure? I think they're both about equally flawed. Both interrupt/continue at about the same rate. McCain seems to just repeat the same rhetoric while Obama improvises a bit more, but Obama resigns himself to just saying 'that's not true' while McCain's talking a lot.

Major points lost there by Obama from me bout his stance on Pakistan. I know it's a rough choice to make, but I don't think we can deal with invading a sovereign nation like that. I'd feel too much like Russia.

I mean honestly, how much is killing Osama actually going to do? His supporters aren't going to suddenly start liking America :p

Umm...wasn't osama the reason we got in there in the first place :)

seems we forgot about that

What's with all this General Petraeus says this, General Petraeus says that? If Petraeus is hobnobbing with McCain and the GOP, he needs to be canned.

"That our flag... was... still... [crying] still... THERE"

I'm proud of people my age too. Except most of them just blindly love Obama. It's better then not being interested at all.

Obama has called McCain "Tom" and "Jim". It's not important, but it happened.

John McCain has lied several times.

@Pag: I'm aware of what Osama did. Doesn't change the fact that Pakistan's military has orders to open fire on American units that continue to do air raids into their country due to us killing a village of innocents in the mountains by mistake. Obama's saying we should ignore that, McCain's not. In my eyes, Obama just lost points. Not enuff to change my vote, but still.

@Guyy: General Petraeus: The guy leading the forces in Iraq. He's not 'hobnobbing', but providing info to the general public through publicly released statements that these two guys are quoting.

Roffles. Obama just shot down McCain's accusation of contact with Iran without preconditions. I suppose he should listen to his own advisors a bit more :p xD.

Good on Obama. Kissinger was clear about needing to talk with Iran without preconditions.

Edit:citation for Kissinger: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m..._/ai_n24939107

Roffles. I thought Obama was talking a bit too much about 'when I'm President'. McCain made a funny ^^.

John McCain may have known Kissinger for "30 years" (wrong), but he's dead wrong about this.

It's been interesting to the audience graphic on the bottom of CNN's screen.

The red has been in general support of a lot of what Obama has to say.

i misread what you were saying, sorry.

still i mainly am saying, why have people forgotten about OBL...almost completely

Thanks for the heads up! :thumbsup:

I agree that Osama's been largely forgotten by the public: not much we can do about that.

Thanks for that comment, Charlatan. I switched channels.

The red didn't blip from the middle when McCain brought up off shore drilling... interesting

John McCain is dying on 9/11. It was stupid to say that he thinks that we're safer.

Why? Isn't he right? I'm sure that we're much more aware of our own mortality.

On the other hand, the world situation is much less stable.

EDIT: Yea, the Repubs are certainly approving a LOT of what Obama has to say. Not gonna lie, that cheers my heart. Unfortunately, I see a lot of Dem dipping before McCains even really started to speak :\. Come on libs!

We're not safer because global terrorism is up. Look at what's happened after 9/11: anthrax in the mail, snipers, attacks on our allies...

Edit: every time McCain says "Obama doesn't understand..." his numbers drop off considerably.

Did I just hear an old man frantically, excitedly enthuse over Star Wars?

Jesus H Christ.

That's the name of our missile defense system. (As a note, I was distracted from the debate for a minute so I could be mistaken and that he's actually talking about the movie series).

EDIT: As a note, I think the polls are clear which candidate the audience in general favors.

Reagan + SDI in the same sentence.

Google that sir, that's Star Wars.

The man is living in 1980 + 9/11 +Surge.

How does McCain do it? He's a hawk pulling on heartstrings.

QFT


and thanks for the CNN head's up. the lines are very interesting. most of the time, it seems people rae split when mccain speaks and generally approve when obama speaks...

except for obama's last little speech. mccain, on the other hadn has all three lines below the halfway point. ...

wow.

Wifey time!

McCain looks very old and his wife looks like she's ten.

eh.... i found it really boring

There was only one president on offer there.

The manic look in McCain's eyes as he got the opportunity to regurgitate the decades old dogma was horrifying.

Reaganomics - dead.
Reagan Diplomacy - dead.
Reagan - dead.

Does McCain realise that wasn't the "Reagan-off" republican primaries?

The Horror.

Hallelujah!

I found it quite enjoyable to listen to Cynth, but then again I guess I'm not following the campaigns as closely as I could have. I feel Obama won, but McCain did rather well.

I found it interesting to watch how McCain focused on portraying Obama as inexperienced and naive ('what Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand...').

I'm really glad McCain didn't do well on foreign policy. That's supposed to be his bread and butter. The last debate will be on the economy, a place where Obama has a clear advantage. That's the debate that will be the most fresh in the mind of undecided, and that may make the election.

People are scared about the economy, and I don't see that changing between now and November 5.

This, I fear.

I think that some people will listen to what they want out of it, and McCain may well get a bounce from it, simply for a few one liners that talking heads can reproduce.

We had a live feed here in Iceland, 1-2:30am... ktsp and I stayed up to watch it. One thing I will say here is that I disliked how McCain NEVER acknowledged Obama on stage. Hardly even gave him a glance, even when Obama was speaking directly to him. Neither candidate did a very good job of talking directly with each other the first 10 minutes or so, but after the moderator repeatedly asked them to do so, I think Obama did just that. He looked up at McCain when McCain was speaking, and he directed most of his points towards McCain. McCain, however, just looked down or at the camera/audience... he never looked at Obama, never said "Barack" or "you" to the senator himself... always talked about Obama in 3rd person, "Senator Obama says this, does that" but never directly. This annoyed me to no end. It was like McCain couldn't even tune his body language to seeing Obama on his same level, and I think that says a great deal about his attitude as well. I thought he was a horrible debater, personally. Obama was not extremely strong, but I believe he pulled out on top by some margin. I look forward to reading analyses the rest of the weekend. Must sleep now, 3am. :)

BTW, Biden will be on Countdown tonight (MSNBC). It will be interesting to see what he might say.

Have a good sleep, Abaya!

I think it was a tie... but McCain's lack of eye contact is just weird. It's like there's something distracting him on the end of the mic. Look at the camera? No. Opponent? No. Mic? Yes.

OOF

Who won, yes it's MSNBC

tisonly, I'm not quite sure why you fear my response.

@abaya: Very good point.

I'm going to bed before then will. =(

WOW good numbers on that poll.

That's what I was trying to say. But of course you said it much better, thanks.

If the debate is played as 'pretty even' by the talking heads and then they endlessly replay one-liners... McCain wins overall.

Soundbite politics for sub 90 IQ.

Sorry.

*PHEAR*

no clear winner, which favors the guy in the lead (ie: Obama)

Thought the polls had them tied?

If I interpreted this correctly, it sounds like Mccain will go to war with any country that he doesn't like and he is going to add a lot of money into the department of defense and eliminate departments that are not important (which one are those?). Also, it is fundamentally important that he veto those bills that go across his desk with a permanent marker.

McCain seemed to get royally upset with Obama about an hour and five minutes into the debate. Yikes.

I disagree with that in many respects.

A: McCain was viewed as the clear leader in this before it started. That Obama would even be considered even is a major -loss- for McCain.

B: McCain's polls have been falling. He needed a decisive victory here to post him back up to par with Obama.

C: They both had good soundbites. I fail to see why people would really be swayed one way or the other. Those people who are really going to parrot the soundbites are those who already had their minds made up.

@Jove: Actually, one of the few points I preferred McCain on was about Pakistan, which Obama seemed far more willing to invade. This was about Osama.

It was engaging enough to prevent me from getting much homework done, I don't know if that speaks more to the quality of the debate or to the excitement I derive from HVAC analysis.

I liked when Obama lectured McCain about his support for the invasion of Iraq and McCain's response was essentially, "Well, the thing about that is that I have a bracelet."

The whole bracelet segment was a bit surreal, I have to say.

Yeah, but then Obama pointed out he's got a bracelet too:thumbsup:

HVAC? High voltage or heating and A/C? or... something I never heard of?

HVAC stands for Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning and it won't be a bad place to be, provided people are still able to finance new buildings when I finish school in May.

Yes, the bracelet thing was odd. It seemed like it would have been a pretty lame gimmick if only one of them had brought it up. The fact that both of them did kind of cancels it out-- like the lameness offsets and all that we're left with is each of the two presidential candidates trying to outdo the other's ability to accessorize at the behest of grieving mothers.

CNN poll:

Debate winner:
Obama 51 - McCain 38

Iraq:
Obama 52 - McCain 47

Economy:
Obama 58 - McCain 37

Ouch.

watching hte lines again, people REALLY rejected mccain when he was condescending to obama's experience...

Those scores look about right based on the metrics I was seeing on screen.

Guess what? Obama is polling ahead on every major news site, including Fox News:
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...Picture1-2.png

Reminded me of a high school drill with the teacher trying to get the students to talk directly to each other. I wish one of them had said "just ask the damn questions, I'll address John/Barack when I think it is appropriate".

I thought McCain did pretty well remembering most of the countries and leaders names but he came across as almost fearful to talk to any country that did not agree with us.

I need to find this debate on YouTube or something. As I am not in the US, I wasn't able to watch it.

Listen to this:


Did McCain really say "horseshit" under his breath in response to what Obama said?

He's known for his temper. It sounds very much like he said horseshit.
-----Added 27/9/2008 at 02 : 50 : 35-----
BBC News has the full debate.

You know, I was wondering what he said at that point...now that you mention it, it *does* kinda sound like "horseshit." I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

i thought that is what i heard, but i thought i misheard or something

Well, to be fair, Obama did say "orgy" at one point... which cracked me up. (About the Bush administration's "orgy of spending.")

I really feel like the point I noted last night, about McCain not even acknowledging Obama via body language or direct language, could almost be interpreted as a racial thing. I know others will argue about that, but that's how I felt. He also kept talking over Obama, and Obama was the more polite one and kept asking Jim to stop McCain, but McCain just went on talking. It was like he just wanted to railroad Obama and totally ignore his presence on stage, and make him seem like a "boy" instead of his match. Just my feelings.

As long as Iraq pays the bill and pays us back I am ok with it. They owe us big time.
-----Added 27/9/2008 at 06 : 47 : 16-----
you can listen to it on NPR.org.

And I used to like McCain. Either his memory's shot or he's gotten way too cocky, but I can't stand watching him speak. I see a shades of GW. He's there and can talk somewhat intelligently for a moment, but the rest is like a soundbyte stuck in a loop.

He was condescending, avoided every question and although the tactic was to make Obama seem green, he succeeded in showing his clueless, controlling side. Decisive? Not in my book. Dictatorial maybe ...

Question 1: What programs will McCain eliminate if he is elected president?
Question 2: How does one know if a person is a KGB agent?

I'm not particularly for either candidate... but I've been keeping track of the run. My favorite part of the debate was when McCain stated some point (I forget at the moment... I haven't slept in 22 hours, lol), to which Obama responded "That's a mischaracterization of my position," or something along those lines - I really wanted to hear McCain defend his ads, which have all been gross distortions of Obama's positions. And I also found the fact that McCain constantly tried to downplay Obama with his whole "Obama just doesn't seem to understand, etc, etc" simply reprehensible - Obama's inexperience seems to be one of McCain's favorite arguments (though he doesn't seem to mind Palin's inexperience nearly as much... hmm...). And of course, as you've all said, the way that McCain ignored Obama throughout was very disrespectful. It made me uncomfortable. I also wanted to hear McCain defend his claim that he'll take care of veterans... when his service record shows that he votes against veterans' benefits 70% of the time. And personally vetoing every spending bill that comes to his desk, without exception? Really? Our country's money shouldn't just go to defense (read: offense) like he explicitly stated - spending bills for science, education, public benefits, etc., should all be considered objectively.

Obama, in my opinion, fared well... I used to be put off by his whole position on Pakistan, but the way he explained it made a lot of sense... though I'm not sold.

I think this debate can be considered a victory by either side - there really wasn't as much passionate debate as I'd hoped - so I don't think it will make many people switch candidates; though I feel there was enough to sway more independents to Obama's side than McCain's.

I can't wait for the next one (or the VPs).

I REALLY wanted Obama to call McCain out on his lies. His "That's not true", and "That's as mischaracterization of my position" was just weak. Imagine if he said, "You know, the last several weeks, I keep having this surreal experience in this campaign. I say something, and then almost immediately I hear a distorted, misquoted, twisted, 'gotcha' version of it echoed from the McCain campaign. Senator, I call on you tonight to put an end to the deception in this campaign. You are an honorable man, and the American people deserve better from their Presidential candidates."

Look in his eyes, evidently. :rolleyes:

Yeah, or it stands for "high voltage alternating current."

I thought the bracelet thing was one of Obama'a lowest points. "I have a bracelet too, I have a bracelet too."

It's sad - using someone else's pain and loss as a basis for personal political gain. And as awkward and out-of-place as it felt, I feel that it was a necessary move by Obama. The fact that McCain brought it up first was despicable in itself, but it would have been sadder if Obama hadn't said anything and the right could champion their wonderfully compassionate McCain, who wears a bracelet of a dead soldier (supposedly in solidarity, and not for political points) - which would have made the cheap appeal to emotion successful.

If Obama hadn't said anything, it would have looked bad for him ("well... HE doesn't have a bracelet... I guess that means he doesn't care about the death of our troops!"... yes... a good deal of the population is that shallow), and I doubt he would have brought it up if not for McCain's disgusting appeal to emotion.

All that aside, the duality of the the two mothers' responses to the deaths of their sons is very interesting... one says "don't let my son's death be in vein; finish the fight," while the other says "I don't want any other mother to go through what I've gone through." ... it's an analog to the way the US is split on the issue of the war(s).

Looking back you're probably right. Obama probably needed to respond in kind. But yes, it's sad the loss of life was used for political gain. I just watched Obama and thought he sounded a little less presidential when he stated "I have one too."

Very well said. I thought it was an awkward moment as well--but I really doubt Obama would have busted out that bracelet if McCain hadn't done it first. It was more like he was wearing it for debate insurance than for politics, but maybe it's all the same thing. :p

I despised that way McCain continually laughed at Obama (without even acknowledging him, as I keep saying)--I felt that Obama really was the bigger man here. He chuckled a few times when he heard McCain lying about something, but otherwise he maintained his composure and professionalism. McCain, on the other hand, sounded like a jackdaw imitating Bush every time he laughed... and WTF is with his KGB obsession? Hello!

I don't understand the term "jackdaw."

Actually, I thought he sounded like Jon Stewart's impression of Bush's laugh. That's WAY worse for him!

He's raising the whole cold war spectre, because he wants to be the next Regan and has to create a Russia that's a threat. He doesn't care if it's actually Russia--Iran would be fine too. But he's got to make a bad guy who's bad and who we'd never legitimize by talking to. Legitimizing them by committing billions in military adventurism, sure, but using our words??? Never.

I had a few friends over to watch.

First, I noticed how McCain would insult Obama any chance he could get.

Second, McCain just sounds like he's trying to deceive. He doesn't converse with Obama, he just absorbs what is said and gives his own version of it.

Third, Obama just looks more composed. McCain had several weird looks about him throughout the night. The awkward part is that his face can't contort correctly.

I don't know. Either "horseshit" of "course not." Either way it was a pretty big gaff by him at the time and his staff, instead of just admitting he misspoke, claimed he knew exactly what he was talking about. Which just makes him look more crazy.

Ah, it's just a noisy bird... cackles a bit like a crow, at least in my mind. :)
-----Added 27/9/2008 at 10 : 41 : 21-----
Yeah, I caught on to the whole "I'm gonna say "Reagan" until I'm blue in the face" thing--but I just couldn't believe he was talking about that shit. I guess it's all connected, for him. :p

Where are our conservative TFP'ers to comment on the debate? I'm interested to hear their perspectives... probably very different from mine!

Oh, I'm sure. Both candidates completely played to their bases, and hoped to tip some of those undecideds (I HATE the phrase "Regan Democrats"). Polling this morning seems to indicate that Obama stole some undecideds, but it wasn't real decisive. But I expect that those predisposed one direction or the other will be unswayed by the debate.

#2 is priceless. In McCain's mind, "if Pakistan doesn't agree to go after Bin Laden or Al Qaeda, then we should take them (Bin Laden/Al Qaeda) out," = "we're going to attack Pakistan." There were a few other times where McCain distorted Obama's position on the fly (he must be used to it from doing it so much in his campaign commercials), and I'm elated that Obama caught him and corrected him on the spot. I'm with ratbastid - I wish he'd made a bigger deal about the distortions.

Only saw about 20 minutes of this - the Iran part, where McCain couldn't pronounce the Iranian president's name.

Thought they both looked a bit fake, with both vaguely resembling the Joker (Jack Nicholson version).

I don't think Obama can go after McCain too aggressively.

McCain's issues as an angry old man are one thing, but it'd be the end of the election if Obama is ever seen to have an angry black man moment.

IMHO.

Actually, McCain's whole posturing towards Obama might be in an attempt to produce just such a moment. Disrespect (no eye contact, derisory 3rd person), Distortions and Downright lies... hoping to push Obama's temper and switch all those "middle-ground", "I'm not racist, but" types into solid McCain or not-voting types. Oh, and give the noise machine something to repeat ad nauseum for a month.

Conspiracy! ;)

Ok, thought I was going to have to toss on my Romeos, hop in my rig and go for a looper to ponder the meaning.

Here's an Oregon red-neck translator to help you if that didn't make a lot of sense-

Funny how different regions use different terms and speech.



Someone might want to mention trickle down economic hasn't worked out so well for the masses.

And TFP doesn't seem to have very many conservative members.

This might not be the place to put it, but if there's one things that has always been universal, it's corporate greed. Give money to the rich... and that's where it stays. Otherwise they wouldn't be rich. Reaganomics is a sham, every bit as idealistic as absolute communism. I'm glad that Obama touched on that, and quickly shot down McCain's "we have the highest tax rate for corporations, so we need to pull them down" bullshit.

And I suppose it's tough being the minority - especially in a site that caters to very opinionated people.

I was just saying since the first part of the debate focused on the current economic crisis I fell like Obama could have hit harder with the whole de-regulation trickle down theory BS. Seemed to me like he may have missed an opportunity.

I really liked the format of this debate. The candidates were able to take the time to make their points.

And I don't think either of them won. They explained their plan and their goals for the next administration well. Now, who you liked better might have done better in your mind, but I'm sure the other side will say their person did better. If someone 'won' it means that they had the better ideas and direction for the country. And I don't think I got that from what they said last night compared to their platforms.

I was impressed that Obama was on-board with nuclear and off-shore oil drilling. I'm not a big fan off off-shore drilling (Especially if we aren't reducing our imports by the same amount), but nuclear power and fuel life cycles need to be looked into more.

I kept waiting for Obama to say "trickle-down". He said "bottom up" at least twice. It's long been time to call Reaganomics what it really is: corruption disguised as poor economic theory. It's the creationism of economics.

Supply-side economics can work, but cometh the good-times, you have to pay down the debt as far as possible.

Keynesian in a crash, tax-cutting and increasing spending in the good times is, was and ever will be a recipe for disaster.

Let's not forget to find a way include Haliburton in this discussion.

i thought i heard trickle down once before obama said bottom up.

trickle down=they are even telling you they are pissing on you :)

i'm kidding, but it's a hard theory to buy into

We could go that route. But why? Haliburton was never even mentioned.


Did you watch the debate? If so, what did you think of the debate?

IMO the elections keep getting worse as far as candidate selection. Once again there will only be two candidates (BS!!!) I wont be voting for him, but I thought Obama clearly won the debate, funny how Fox put McCain as the winner. (I do think his wife is hot- PFLMILF, and all the free beer one could ask for? Im jealous).

Ok, I'll bite... what the hell is a "PFLMILF?"

Potential first lady?

soon she'll be a GILF

:thumbsup: