Well, the first of the 2008 presidential debates is behind us.
Whereas the debate was scheduled to cover foreign policy, the first section covered the financial fiasco that has locked the country in a state of financial turmoil with banks and investments companies failing daily. Neither McCain nor Obama provided solutions to the current mess. Obama claimed to have warned two years ago of the looming problem while McCain has a record to back his warnings. Obama took large amounts of money from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and ranked second in donations (since 1989) from these two GSEs despite having been in the US Senate only since 2005. So his claim of warning is suspect. McCain, on the other hand, has demonstrated his toughness on Freddie and Fannie and has a voting record to back it up.
McCain won the financial round.
On foreign policy Obama came across as professorial; lecturing, a know-it-all in the Clinton mode and appeared to talk down to us from his lofty legal perch. Do we really want another smart-ass lawyer to run the executive branch? Obama gives pretty speeches and this ability attracts emotion based supporters who either do not think through Obama's policy proposals or do not care what happens to the nation in the long run. McCain appeared less old than he is, was prepared, gave good answers - otherwise, why did Obama agree with McCain a dozen times? And McCain has a long record of being his own man and a history of service to the nation which Obama lacks. Obama's past is devoid of any service to the nation - other than in the US Senate from which he started running for president as soon as he arrived. Obama's ego is clearly larger than McCain's.
All in all, it was a boring debate as debates go. I wish McCain had been more forceful in pointing out Obama's left wing ideology and how Obama votes 97 percent of the time with his party bosses. McCain needs to point out Obama's lack of reaching across the political aisle to work with Rs because the news media will never cover it.
Obama was packaged - a Madison Street creation - a mirage of wispy rhetoric floating away in the wind of inspection.
McCain was experience talking - a testament of American Exceptionalism.
More to come.
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2 comments:
Let us remember that the financial crisis began with the Clinton administration and the idea that everyone could own a home if only we relaxed the requirements, then continued with the greed of the lenders who needed only to write the loans and sell them to some other company that leaned heavily on the Federal gov't. to insure those top heavy loans. I think Mr McCain has a much better possible solution than Obama.
Obama is willing to sell us out to the UN on foreign policy while Mr McCain has some experience in that field also and I think would pick qualified advisors to help doing the best for America.
excellent analysis.
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