McCain - Obama: The old fellow has lost it!

I really do not know what would be worse, having people feeling sorry for you or having people making fun of you. Either would be a dreadfully piteous thing to face up to.

After last night's debate, poor John McCain is getting a heaping helping of both and, truthfully, I am feeling just a tad sorry for him. It is reported today that a Florida pollster assembled a focus group last night, which had, by the mid way point, disintegrated into snickers at McCain's responses and face makings.

I feel sorrow in the same way I feel for older people who have given up their driving privileges, or who battle incontinence, or flatulence. People, who at one time moved through live doing their thing without making fools of themselves or behaving in such a way to draw the pity or snickering of others.

Regardless one's politics or personal views regarding John McCain, we all can agree, I should hope, that at one time he was dynamic and formidable. However, that was then, and this is now. Voters are moving away from him faster than the grandchildren from the oldsters passing gas or leaving damp spots on the living room furniture.

I offer the video below as evidence of what I'm talking about. Obama sandbagged McCain, McCain gaped and never recovered his composure. He looked confused and befuddled, and you felt like that last ride with grandpa (before he gave up driving) and you had to shout "The light's turned green three-times, gran-dah, we need to go through the intersection this time", and he turned with that look that told you he was somewhere else in a very different time with someone other than you.

Watch it. This is too sad to take any pleasure from it. But it is clearly one of those moments which cause the family to exchange looks and start to quietly make future plans!

Obama Wins: Again!

FOX, CNN, CBS REACTION GROUPS:
OBAMA WON

There was a post debate moment when the wives joined the candidates in talking to the audience and Obama extended his hand to McCain and McCain refused to take it. A brief moment, but I'm certain at some point, someone will send it viral.

What a cheesy middle-school act on the part of a man trying to present himself as a mature, sober and experienced world leader.

My personal take is that McCain blew whatever chance for recovery he might have had going into this debate. The internals show that, once again, Obama scored very well with female and, this time, with male independents and undecideds.

I notice also that McCain was heavily dependent on his legal pad of notes and once he went extemporaneous he started to drift, ramble, and bark out things in some sort of weird free-association litany that really had nothing to do with his previous utterance.

Both irritated the hell out of me by refusing to answer the gist of the audience questions choosing instead to re-frame and stay on message with pre-scripted responses. But, I recognize that at this point in the campaign neither wished to introduce any new or different phrase, suggestion or nuance. But, it does piss me off that the first question from the older retiree did not get answered, and later the woman's very direct question about treating health care as a commodity.

This should be a warning to all that the devil is indeed in the details and that the "bail-out" / "rescue" package really does very damned little for ordinary people. Neither of the candidates were able to reach into it and pluck out a meaningful response which said this is how its going to make things better for you!

Brokaw's question about health care was prescient and really served to underscore the "fundamental" differences in the philosophies and beliefs of the two. Obama spoke of it as being a right and McCain spoke of it as being a responsibility. I would have like to have seen Obama talk of it in terms of being a basic human right and so important and elemental that is is invoked in the preamble to the constitution.

Again, Obama did what he needed to do and McCain came up short. Obama came up looking poised, professional, and presidential and McCain came across as the angry, small-town, conservative book-store owner.

Thoughts about the debate

No wonder McCain wanted to bail, watching him was like watching my grandfather kvetch. No strike that. My grandfathers were essentially nice guys—McCain is so essentially not a nice guy. This fellow, McCain, who has the world by the ass, is just another angry old white-guy. The only thing missing is the white beard to hide the fat jowls and driving the beat-to-hell, faded, butterscotch-yellow, Datsun pick-up truck with a Bush/Cheney sticker. He has thirteen cars, none of which, I’ll just bet, is a faded, etc., etc.

McCain was dismissive, insulting and contemptuous of Obama and never looked his way when making snide and snarky comments about him. Even conservative commentators noted his rudeness. This may account for the fact that the internals of the debate polls indicate that women, by a significant majority, found Obama favorable and McCain unfavorable. Many more people asserted they had a more favorable impression of Obama from the debate than they had for McCain. Who wants a glowering, hunched-up, angry old white guy preaching at them—most have had enough of that when asking dad for the car keys!

Why in the world would he keep invoking the specters of Reagan and Nixon? That might play well with the angry old white-guys in their compact pick-ups, but most of us see Nixon as a perfidious bastard who escaped impeachment by resignation, and Reagan as the primary architect of the deregulation resulting in our higher monthly electric bills and substantially contributing to the current economic catastrophe. Why raise those ugly reference points in people’s minds? Good grief?

This was supposed to be McCain’s strong suit; foreign policy and national security, however it was Obama who had the facts and outlined a program for the future while McCain self-indulgently basked in Vietnam era and Cold War hot-button talking points. One wanted to shout, “John there are several generations of voting-age adults out there watching this for whom Vietnam and the Cold War are vague memories of high-school mid-term essay assignments. There are some really dangerous things going on in the here and now!”

Actually, Obama did tell him that when he mentioned a nuke in a suitcase!

Last night, I was a little disappointed that Obama did not take the opportunity to “dope-slap” McCain on his misrepresentations and lies. And, I felt he was a bit generous in acknowledging there were points of agreement between them. My personal preference is to go for the jugular and have blood spraying the walls.

But after a good night’s sleep, some reflection, and a quick review of the polls, I’ve changed my mind—and so have others. Obama came across as a decent, respectful, caring and knowledgeable man and most women do not really care for personal attack and contentious argument. If, as most pundits say, white women are the key to this election, then Obama’s presidential bearing compared to just another angry, old white guy carried the night!