Your Debate Rundown

October 16, 2008

Okay, so I did watch the debate last night, though to be honest, I was more involved in the Project Runway finale and I’m more inclined to give my thoughts on that rather than a rundown of my debate observations, but suffice it to say I was marginally disappointed in both outcomes and have exactly the same analysis of both (fancy that little coincidence!). Both of the people I initially picked to win the events won the events, however, the didn’t win by much and the second place person was very polished but had some very obvious failures that allowed the first person to pass them by and take the top slot. Also, Kenlee, I am glad you lost because you were a jerk to everyone the entire time you were on, and I kind of think that Heidi Klum didn’t just want to “Auf” you so much as she wanted to kick your little patoot into the frosted glass backdrop.

So here we go:

1. I thought McCain won that debate. I really did. I think most people agree with me because after the debate last night, the words “Grumpy McNasty” were repeated over and over in the #debate08 Twitter stream which leads me to believe that the hive mind that controls the progressive left had little to issue to its millions of borg-like followers other than two words that made up a fairly benign yet elementary and pointed insult. Also, this morning, the one thing they could say that was positive was that the election commercials didn’t run for the full two hours of the debate. Fancy that.

2. Like it or not, Grumpy McNasty’s significant dose of “old” really helped him out. Bob Schieffer, who I was surprised was still alive, but I guess it was the other dude from CBS who croaked last year, made a point to ask questions that were out of the wild blue yonder. This may have been an effect of dementia, but whatever it was it favored McCain. Apparently, Obama has no idea that “foreign policy” extends beyond the reaches of the Middle East; there are other dictators out there who are just begging to be met with and coddled and some of them live south of our borders and not south of France’s. When asked about the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Obama explained that it should be abandoned because some people in our strongest Latin American ally country, Columbia, are being prevented from unionizing. He was casually reminded by McCain, who may or may not have been in the party that discovered Latin America in the 1400s, casually explained that this might have something to do with the radical proto-Commie guerrilla group, FARC, who is supported by a man that Obama wanted to group hug with, Hugo Chavez. Oops!

Maybe this is a function of our union-run educational system, but Obama just seemed to have no grasp of foreign affairs that he wasn’t prepped for in the last debate. As much as it pains me to say this — and it doesn’t — Obama looked as inexperienced as Sarah Palin in a Katie Couric interview. It was painful to watch. Not for me, but it has to be painful for someone.

3. Speaking of which, that was a totally diffused bomb that I didn’t expect to be a complete and utter dud. When asked about each other’s Vice Presidents, both candidates had a bit of an awkward moment. McCain couldn’t exactly pick on Biden other than to say that he’s had a career full of non-change, which makes him an unlikely choice for a Ticket for Change, and that he has a similarly significant does of “old,” as well. Oddly enough, nothing about Home Depot came up. The real kicker, though was when Obama was asked about Sarah Palin. Although he could have hit on a number of important issues that his followers have fabricated from nothingness in the last several weeks, he struggled. He couldn’t hit her on experience; she has more than he does. He couldn’t hit her on ties to odd political parties and questionable groups, churches and other organizations; he’s about as tied to questionable groups, churches, organizations, individuals and political parties (that New Party thing is just sitting on the sidelines waiting to be called into the game) as anyone in the history of political activism. He could have called her on Todd Palin’s apparently unethical use of the governor’s office, but Michelle would have taken him aside and beaten him later since it would have pre-empted her use of the Office of the President to one day make scathing phone calls to the bosses of service industry professionals Chicago over.

4. John McCain needs to stop laughing at his own jokes. You remember the Count from Sesame Street, who would count everything in sight and then laugh after he counted it with this maniacal, protracted, evil laugh. Like “One, bat! Two, bats! Three-bats! Mwah-ha-ha…” They even wrote a song about it called “Do The Batty-bat” where backup singers did the maniacal laughter in harmony. It was awesome. And last night, every time McCain knew he’d scored one, or made a funny, he would laugh with sort of this combined Count/Three Stooges laugh that would just kill me a little inside. He’d also spread his mouth into this bizarre grin that made his cheeks look like wings and it was at this point that I searched the apartment for tequila, found none and had to resort to comforting myself with Ben & Jerry’s. It was sick. Quite, quite sick.

5. (Am I on number 5?) I could discuss here Obama’s health care plan, his tax plan, his economic plan, or his plan for the environment, but all of them are so oddly unworkable that its not worth repeating what I said after the last debate. I disagree with him ideologically. Thats not going to change. My gut feeling is that he’s going to send the country to hell in a handbasket. Okay, that’s standard operating procedure for people who believe that the goverment shouldn’t even deliver our mail let alone control the system that I might have to rely on to guide me through a terminal illness or drunken-Cub-fan related injury. That’s just who we are.

What I really noticed about Obama last night was that he couldn’t stop the bleeding when it came to the outright lies. I’m serious. I’m not trying to throw barbs here; I just think this is the mark of a very unsophisticated campaign and a very inexperienced candidate. If McCain were not so old, I think these same things would happen, but like with Sarah Palin, when you’ve never run a national campaign before, it shows in debates. At least with Sarah Palin, the expectations were so low, she just had to make Joe Biden laugh uncomfortably a few times to prove that she would clean the floor with anyone who dared to challenge her and her acid wit in a battle of talking points. With Obama, the results were his downfall.

Look, Obama. You can’t hide from the facts, and you do a pretty horrible job of spinning them when you’re on the spot. You worked for ACORN. You worked for ACORN for a freaking decade. You developed one of their most successful voter registration programs, and you pounded the pavement in Chicago for them as one of their top community organizers. Sure, you weren’t paid by them. No employee of a non-profit is payed by the non-profit; technically, legions of generous donors pay their wages and keep their non-profit going. Other organizations who fund non-profits with grants also pay their wages. But in the end, you work for the non-profit, and Obama, ACORN is bad news. What Obama chose to do, instead of actually distancing himself from ACORN’s current activities, was tell a big whopper about how he only once worked for ACORN, as a representative along with the Justice Department. His involvement is ongoing.

Unfortunately for Obama, those are the facts, both about Ayers and ACORN. Obama paid ACORN over $800,000 this summer for GOTV efforts, which Obama now denies, although he did finally admit that he represented ACORN as an attorney in a lending-practices case. Obama did launch his career at a party hosted by Ayers, which is such a matter of public record that I’m frankly surprised he bothered to deny it.

I didn’t even touch on the Ayers thing because we’ve talked about it before. Why bother at this point to deny it? Actually, why bother even to dignify it with a response? And in that case, why bother to lie? I guess its easy (or at least easier) for Obama to count out his involvement with Ayers because his legion of rock-solid voters will now swallow anything he hands them to drink, by Ayers is still a dangerous association, and the more that he denies that he’s been involved with Ayers in many capacities over the last several decades in Chicago and beyond and that Ayers doesn’t represent a very dangerous segment of the liberal voting population and a very serious threat to Obama’s credibility, the more he looks as though he’s hiding something that’s very damaging. Either he is, or he’s not. At this point in the debate, the threat of an October surprise is too great to avoid the subject entirely.

Then there’s the abortion bill. The Born-Act was brought up in the Illinois legislature specifically because the treatment of infants that survive abortion was not mandated by law at the time. The legislature heard testimony, according to Captain Ed, that more than 20% of late-term abortions had resulted in barely-living infants, who were then placed in hospital closets and other locations, only to be discovered by vigilant nurses. The law proscribed a higher standard of care than was already in Illinois law, and covered something that was not specifically covered in the previous health care standards; the existing law was considered to be “ineffective” at preventing this specific scenario. Obama voted against it. Plain and simple. If you support this kind of legislation, you vote for it. If you don’t, you vote against it. Both sides had their reasons. It wouldn’t hurt Obama to elucidate them. Hell, if anything it would win him a few points with the progressives he lost when he said that he’d actively support merit pay for teachers, teacher testing and Charter schools.

Whatever.

So who won?

Like I said, I think, if we’re going with political winners, McCain has no assumed the crown from Tom Brokaw. If we’re talking real winners, that has to be Mr. Man of the Night himself, Joe the Plumber, whose bitchy response to an Ohio-marooned, blue-collar-pandering Obama earned him an interview with Neil Cavuto and apparently, he got personal calls from both candidates who were desperate to get themselves a blue collar political device to demonstrate to the rest of the blue collar population that they had credibility or attempted to convince the blue collar community that they are in touch with the needs of the blue collar community. Gosh darn Reagan Democrats and their fickle economic needs and industry jobs. Fortunately, Joe the Plumber is a McCain supporter or, at least, he’s not an Obama supporter, which means that Joe the Plumber got a lot of airtime last night because he represents a Real Person who rejected the Obama tax-redistribution plan and believes that his small business is likely to be affected. Real People are very important in politics and they seem to have Real Thoughts, which indicate that they have taken time to consider who to vote for. If you have a Real Person on your side, you can feel pretty darn good about the direction of your campaign.

Which brings me to my final point. Real People should be running. In fact, I believe that as of this moment I am calling for a Real People ticket. Possibly this means that Joe the Plumber is now running for President. I nominate Sarah Palin as his running mate, and she is hereby required to carry that Taco Bell bag I’ve seen her bringing on planes with her everywhere she goes and stop at every single Wal-Mart ever to buy diapers as she did yesterday.

Man, I love that woman.

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