Presidential Smackdown I

As I've said, I certainly don't want to make this blog exclusively political in nature, but it seemed necessary to at least post something about the first presidential debate, which too place earlier tonight in Oxford, Mississippi. I think that both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama did their jobs well. They each framed their points the way they wanted to and neither came off as excessively unreasonable. I enjoyed this particular format because it allowed for real debate, a back-and-forth between the candidates, which moderator Jim Lehrer did a good job of encouraging. If debates are simply a series of questions posed to the individual candidates, then we get the same answers we get every day in stump speeches. But if they're talking to each other, than we often get genuinely new insights into the way these people think.

A few examples: Obama framed McCain's tax policy as "tax breaks for the wealthy." McCain argued that "reducing the business tax" would encourage businesses to flourish here in the US. I'm not sure I agree with McCain, but this was the first time I had actually heard him defend his position on this issue in a coherent way. He at least sounded like someone I could reason with. Alternatively, McCain challenged Obama on one of his pet issues, earmarks. Obama explained coherently why he believes that this is not the sole solution to our budgetary issues. He made McCain come across as a little crazy on the subject. McCain did his best to do the same to Obama on the issue of Iraq withdrawal, but American support for that action is so across-the-board that I don't know if he could succeed.

McCain consistently tried to frame the foriegn policy issue in terms of experience, a subject he returned to over and over. This is what he needs to do to Obama on that issue. Obama, alternatively, needs to present this election as one of the past versus the future, which as I have explained I think it very much is. I was most struck in that respect, unexpectedly, by the exchange concerning policy towards Russia. Obama chastised Russia for some of its recent actions, but warned against "returning to a Cold War mindset." McCain led off his opening statement on the question by saying, "I have looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes, and I saw three letters: K-G-B." Obama succeeded at very clearly making that a debate about past thinking versus moving forward into the future

Viet Cong is One Thing, Letterman Is Another

An unexpected consequence of John McCain's campaign suspension (is it back on now? Sorta kinda? Was it ever really off?) was this video hitting number one on You Tube:

It won't embed right... here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjkCrfylq-E

McCain cancelled his scheduled Wednesday night appearance on David Letterman's talk show. The two have in the past been good friends, and McCain for all intents and purposes announced his candidacy several months ago on Letterman's show. Letterman was at first, he says, understanding, but then became angrier when it was discovered that rather than "rushing to the airport," McCain was just down the street in New York doing an interview with Katie Couric... on Letterman's own network. Eventually Keith Olbermann showed up as a replacement, and more hilarity ensued.

What's most interesting about this to me is that the video that hit number one isn't the official version CBS released, which is under a minute and a half. It's the version I link to above, which is nearly ten minutes. That's right, the people on YouTube apparently have better attention spans than the mainstream networks give them credit for. Huh.

That Economic Summit? It "devolved into a shouting match"

Yahoo!News has become the closest thing the internet has to a New York Times, or at least what the Times used to be. How weird is that? They're actually better than, say, USA Today, at any rate.

So, to keep y'all updated on the current situation, I give you this, which is one of the more entertaining straight news articles you'll ever read: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080926/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown

I thought political meetings only went like this on West Wing.

Update: Yahoo's doing that thing they do where they're updating on the same topic, so it's important but slightly less entertaining. I encourage you to seek out accounts of the meetings last night. It's pretty awesome.

Update 2: Best (and most understandable) explanation of aforementioned crisis I have yet seen: http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/26/news/economy/bailout_impact/index.htm?cnn=yes

John McCain Throws a Hail Mary

So, we find out John McCain is desperate. I didn't make this blog to be a political polemic, that wasn't really the point. But really, this is pretty much unheard of. Today he announced that he is suspending his campaign for President until the economic crisis is resolved. He wants to cancel the Presidential debate on Friday unless the proposed "bailout plan" (which I was originally planning on posting about) is passed, an eventuality that's looking increasingly unlikely (despite the White House's claims that it would be "unthinkable") since Congress has developed an inconvenient ability the past few days to think for itself. Obama's response?: "I think that one of the president's jobs will be to focus on more than one thing at once."

I don't really have a sense of what public reaction to this is going to be. The Debate Commission (theoretically unbiased, though notorious for excluding even vaguely-viable third-party candidates) says Friday's debate in Oxford, Mississippi (and why there, exactly?) will go on as scheduled. The McCain camp says it will not show up. President Bush went on TV a few minutes ago to say our "entire economy is at risk" because of this Wall Street business (the causes of that, as I mentioned, are probably another post). The proposed bailout (which both campaigns said tonight in a joint statement is "flawed") involves the Treasury Department and the only quasi-governmental Federal Reserve 700 Billion taxpayer dollars to such companies as AIG, Goldman Sachs, etc. in order to keep them remotely solvent. Some members of Congress (seemingly on both sides of the aisle) have balked at this for a variety of reasons, ranging from free-marketers who say government intervention in the economy is how we got into this mess (who are sort of right... if you look at it in a skewed way) to populists who believe that this would only "reward bad behavior" for overpaid CEOs, who would suffer no punishment for their gross mismanagement. And most prominently, $700 Billion is quite simply money we don't have when we're already grossly in debt.

I will try and post further updates on this situation as it develops. I personally believe this is McCain trying to manufacture what's known as an "October surprise" out of thin air, or thick air, anyway. The latest polls, for what they are, show Obama with a big lead in some key states and surprisingly pretty much tied in a few others that Republicans win most of the time, not to mention a lead nationally that is nearing double digit percentage points. In a third millenium election, that's a massive blowout. And the polls don't even take into account much of one of Obama's most solid voting blocks, voters under 26, because they only poll those with landlines. (i.e. if you only have a cell phone, presidential polls act like you don't exist).

McCain knows this. He's trying to change the game. I don't know if it'll work or not. It's probably worth a shot on his part, at any rate. Bush & Co. are trying the same fear-mongering tactics they used in the run-up to Iraq. Again, I'm not sure if it'll work... and the only reason I can even see for them to want to is because they're in deep with the Wall Street CEOs... but surely they're not that corrupt, are they? Oh, wait...

p.s. Not all our readers are (hopefully) American, so I thought I should explain the title... a Hail Mary's a play in American Football (the most complex strategy-based sport in the world, for my money, which is why I love it). More on THAT here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_Mary_pass