We are watching the debate from Nashville, and among us, yes, there isn't a McCain supporter. Our one holdout from the first debate has switched and now is voting for Obama. So we are listening skeptically, voicing our doubts without inhibition. Certainly this debate is not the surreal entertainment of the Biden-Palin debate of last week.
At least this one is serious, seriously looking at how the economic failures have affected individual men and women and families.
Just a very catty observation: we are watching on HDTV, and I never noticed how bad Tom Brokaw's bottom teeth are!
I like Obama's calm. I am feeling so anxious that I need someone to speak to me with deliberation, not pandering, but calm. He seems so sensible. I just lost thousands of dollars in a carefully planned 401K that was divided 50-50 between stocks and bonds. I am not gambler. Despite my conservative investment, my retirement has been put off by years. I need someone who speaks to me as an intelligent person who is part of the solution. McCain condescends to me, he wants to decide, not us.
Challenges are opportunities. Isn't that what we have learned as we have aged? That whenever we are confronted, we have this moment when we can open our eyes and open our possibilities. Obama speaks to that level of thinking. I like that.
23 votes against alternative fuels by McCain. This is a failure of leadership. America has 3% of the world's oil reserves. We can't drill our way out of the problem. We can't use more fossil fuels to get a hold on global warming. We had a chance to be the leaders for going green, and delusion and denial under Bush prevented that from happening. And now Palin speaks about regulation as if it isn't what moves the economy forward.
We can be leaders in developing alternative technology and then exporting it to China and other nations so that we don't smoke over the planet.
Health care is tied to Social Security. We won't bankrupt the country if we have affordable health care.
Ronald Raygun is no hero in this household!
McCain is no maverick. Be sure to read the Rolling Stones article that tells a story about John McCain that will make you shiver.
Is health care a commodity? This is a good question. I was just at the doctor after a cardiac incident. He checked my pulse, heart beat, and did an EKG. Then he told me that my insurance was so bad that he had to wait for another incident before he could order the next round of tests.
I'm a woman nearing sixty. The most likely cause of death for a woman my age is heart disease.
What is the purpose of health insurance?
We need government to impose regulations, because without regulation, we are reduced to our worst: greed, indifference, and bias.
I wish Obama would mention that by having no state regulation over health insurance, companies could easily stop paying for reproductive health, including birth control and abortion. That is what the conservatives want the Supreme Court to do, to make reproductive health protections a state issue, not a federal one. Once it is solely state controlled, we could lose everything. Our daughters could lose control over their bodies. Margaret Atwood wrote of such in The Handmaiden's Tale.
Obama hits McCain on foreign policy!!! Iraq has put an enormous strain on our troops and we owe them gratitude. But what a failed policy!
What about the Iraqi $79 billion surplus? I've never heard McCain answer that charge.
Use of U.S. combat forces: can either fathom a humanitarian use of US force where there are no national security issues at stake.
Moral issues might be at stake. Holocaust, Rwanda: looking back should we have acted? Standing by idly diminishes the US. We need to work in concert with our allies, not alone, we can't sustain unilateral action.
McCain shouldn't be calling us "my friends." It's patronizing. He isn't answering the questions.
What are the limits of America's abilities to make a difference in interventions? Somalia, Lebanon? We have to temper our decisions, is this McCain speaking? I don't think temperament with McCain, do you?
McCain still isn't looking at Obama. He is blinking and smirking a lot. Again, it is an anger management issue, according to Leslie who is an analyst and leadership trainer. It could be misinterpreted as racism or arrogance, at least.
McCain is criticizing Obama about announcing an invasion of Pakistan, yet what did Bush do in invading Iraq? Day by day, hour by hour, warning Iraq before the bombs fell.
Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!!! Obama is punching back with elegance and grace.
An acceptable dictator in Afghanistan? An acceptable dictator in Iraq? Is this refreshingly honest about American foreign policy, finally?
However, the surge was not the reason for the calm in Iraq, lately, at least according to Bob Woodward. According to Woodward, as he finally admitted on Friday night's Bill Maher's Real Time on HBO, it is a secret strategy of "exploding baskets" that has brought the calm, not any increase in the number of American troops stationed there.
Is McCain saying we should go to war with Russia? Is he mad? At least Obama is speaking about assisting the economic strength of former economic satellites, not just seeing everything in military terms. But I'm not happy about either candidate's response here. Petro dollars increase the influence of Russia.
Notice that the microphones are just for show as a way of diminishing McCain's stiffness and handicaps.
The Israeli question is clearly pandering to Florida. For a laugh, watch Sarah Silverman's thegreatschlep.com. Jews are 2% of the population, but 4% of the vote. It's an important factor in winning Florida, fair and square, and not the way it was won in 2000 or 2004.
Yes, we need to talk directly with our friends, and more importantly, with our enemies.
Last question: What don't you know and how will you learn it?
Obama: Michelle could give a much longer list. The nature of the challenges is immense. We never know what the challenges will be. Are we going to pass on the American dream to the next generation?
McCain: We don't know what challenges we will be facing around the world or at home.
We think Obama did well.
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2 comments:
I Agree! Thought he was strong, firm, calm, and spoke to us like adults. Thank you for your thoughtful comments on this.
Hi Zel,
As I think you know, I am not 100% thrilled about Obama because of the campaign he ran, especially with the BS about what Bill Clinton said in South Carolina. Because of that incident I have lost all my respect for the liberal news media that I once coveted, especially Frank Rich and Keith Olbermann.
I am still pissed at Obama for not standing with his fellow Democrats in trying to filibuster Alito's nomination to the Supreme Ct. It probably would have failed but once and a while you need to show backbone.
Finally, I found an interview Obama did with the editorial board of the Reno Gazette and after watching that online I never thought I'd be able to vote for him and I became a strong Hillary supporter.
All that being said, John McCain has become a nasty old little whore of the Republican Party. He doesn't care about America anymore, rather he cares about getting to the level of POTUS and he has elevated himself to being almost as good at demonstrating what the "Peter Principle" means as Bush did. Yes, the new John McCain is as bad as Bush, albeit not yet as constitutionally criminal.
His VP pick is what I call White Trash and that club would include George W Bush and Cindy McCain.
So, I am voting for Obama. I didn't like Kerry either but that was for his weakness and political stupidity and I voted and even worked for him.
What worries me is many people I talk to will not vote for Obama. They know they don't like him and they are afraid of what he will mean to Israel. Unfortunately, that is the dumbest reason for not voting for him because Obama has a 1000 times more acceptability than Bush and Cheney and now McCain and Palin to actually do something for the middle east.
The problem has always been that he really hasn't done anything to deserve the presidency. Writing a letter about the war and 18 months in the Senate does not a president make. But he does know that he has to push his judgment for things that happen in the future.
I think at Hofstra he needs to comeback at McCain, when McCain says he's green and say:
John McCain is a Great American who has served his country well. However, his ideas are dangerous, as were Bush and Cheney's idea's and his understanding of what makes an economy work for all Americans is as clueless as the narrow minded trickle down economics of Bush, Cheney and the rest of the Republican Party. I don't think too many Americans are aware that when John Kennedy took office the top marginal tax bracket for the very wealthy was 91%. Sure that's high but the Republicans have bankrupted us by reversing that so that the wealthiest among us are paying 15% on Dividends and Capital Gains while many of us everyday workers in the middle and upper middle classes pay 35% plus FICA, which brings us to 42.65% almost three times what the hedge fund managers and the trust fund babies pay. Who but Republicans could think that was fair?
We used to hear about waking up the silent majority and that kind of talk will do it. So far, Obama has relied and pandered to the kids and the African Americans. If he wants middle class adults to vote for him he has to show them what the Republicans have hid from them, for decades, in their campaigns of Hate and Fear.
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