When it comes to tax policy, health care and the economy we already know what both candidates will say before they say it. On that front we didn't learn anything new about either one. Grading on a curve last night was easily McCain's best performance yet he was still off putting. Ultimately, I am left with the following impressions:
- Obama is as cool as the flip side of a pillow. He was never rattled no matter what outrageous incoming fire McCain sent his way. Obama smiled quite a bit while McCain spoke which may be his way of maintaining composure. Some might find that arrogant.
- Increasingly, McCain reminds me of a typical villain from the old Scoobie-Doo cartoons. Last night I could almost feel McCain thinking, "I would've have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids.!"
- McCain was rather flippant about the health of the mother when it comes to exemptions for late term abortions. To me he seemed callous.
- Obama remains evasive about what specific programs our current economic crisis may force him to cut.
- Joe the Plumber worked initially but McCain's obsessive references to him as a crutch was off putting.
- McCain's has a serial habit of interrupting which is quite off putting. It bothered me when Al Gore did it too and he's someone I admire. Interrupting people is insecurity disguised as arrogance.
- McCain's line about not being President Bush was good but a day late and a dollar short.
- One way or another I've seen nearly every presidential debate since primary season for both parties this year. Even though I'm a political junkie I'm glad they're over.
2 comments:
Heya Robert!
My thoughts exactly! Where ya been lately? We miss you over at WWL!
Diane G
//Joe the Plumber worked initially but McCain's obsessive references to him as a crutch was off putting...//
Well, that's exactly what it was - a mental crutch. McCain has repeatedly displayed an age induced brittleness of mind & thought, along with signs of dementia. I don't say this lightly. I have experienced it first hand and recognize it. He's not the man he used to be, mentally, and I suspect this bothers him most of all when he is sitting across from the youthful Obama. *He* should have been President in 2000, but he ran an honorable campaign and was defeated as a result. In 2008, he's running the dishonorable campaign, only to see his chances for the Presidency slip through his fingers.
Ultimately, my impression of McCain is that he is not a bright man. He's not an original or inventive thinker. It looks as though he's going to be defeated a second time because he couldn't intuit the future or even the present. He remains in a muddle of half thought-out premises and convoluted strategies. Grasping the whole is always just beyond his reach.
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