Farewell Paul Newman

Sigh...gone at age 83

Debate post mortem

Thanks to jvmatucha and the absent fighting_in_sf I got to watch the debate last night in a lovely apartment, nice big TV and three of the most handsome kitties! (Well, two at least, one never came out while I was there but I did peek under the bed to see him.) JVM has been house/cat sitting for fighting while she does a grand tour in Europe. I was grateful for a chance to enjoy time with friends and watch an important part of the political process.

My thoughts overall: It was a draw.

Mind you, my mind is already made up. I'm not the one who is likely to be swayed on the debates. These are for information and to hook in the undecided and the independent vote.

Physical Presence
McCain: Cast Iron body language and I don't mean that in a good way. He was stiff, defensive, shoulders hunched in towards his sternum. The man has no neck. have you ever noticed that? I'm noticing that more and more about men as they age I guess. My cousin Jay for instance...seemed to lose his neck as soon as he hit 40. But that wasn't it. In that defensive rigid poster was a man who was clearly impatient, not happy to be where he was, defensive and all in all I thought he looked like a well off parolee in an ill fitting suit. The fact that he would not relax, lean in, turn, look left or right, acknowledge or speak directly to his opponent did not impress me. It was not the stance, attitude or action of a top-flight diplomat. One might argue that a President HAS diplomats so the President does not have to BE a diplomat, but I disagree. I think the President is our TOP Diplomat and as such has to have that ability.

OBama: His body language was more relaxed, confident and open. He gestures overly much but that is part of the openness. His physical presence works with him not against him. That said he needs to work the camera better, leaning forward and in, to intimatize the venue, speak directly to the audience on the camera. Clinton did this particularly well even with all of his random gesticulation through the years. I thought that he showed confident strength without being intimidating or threatening. Unlike Johnson or Regan, both tall men, he did not loom or use his height in an intimidating manner. Barack, honey, you have GOT to find your poker face it will do you a lot of good in these one on one scenarios, not to mention when you are Top Diplomat in a tense discussion with Iran, or North Korea or Russia. Game face man. Gotta find that game face. It was your physical weak point last night.

Voice:

McCain: I always expect a more robust voice out of McCain than I actually get. His vocal quality is nasal and airy and I admit that puts me off at the get go. I also deeply resented his immediately play at being sympathetic by stumbling through an overwhelmingly insincere get well card to Ted Kennedy. If he thought that would put a lot of folks in his lap for the night, I think he is mistaken. He needs to be more articulate and less garbled. Extemporaneous speaking does not seem to be his forte. He's got things to say but they rush out of his mouth in a jumble. That said I did NOT count against him his stumble on Ahmadinejad's name. He got it right the first time, but as his excitement level rose so did the bursts of words and when he stumbled on the name of Iran's President he did stop, take himself in hand and re-pronounce it right. I gave him points for that it was the most HUMAN physical/vocal presence display from him for the entire 90 minutes. Hell I can't pronounce the name half the time and like him I would have stopped myself and got it out syllable by syllable.

Obama: His voice is mellow without the bellow. I appreciate that. I know many folks feel like they're being preached at by him instead of spoken to. I don't feel that way and maybe its the lack of bombast in his voice. He is articulate, rehearsed, thoughtful in what he says. I found it interesting that for all of his lack of a game face, his voice was his poker face in many ways. He never dropped that firm confident tone even when he was irritated. He may shake his head and say 'that's not true, that's not true' but when he spoke it was with conviction and decisiveness.

Issues:

Economy:
I found it interesting how last night's foreign policy topic was hijacked for the first 30 or 40 minutes into economics at home and how NEITHER candidate every did REALLY answer Leher's question of what priorities their presidency would make in light of this fiscal melt down we're in.

McCain: My record, my record, my record I'm really old, I've been here a long time, look at my record. Human interest fuzzy kitten story one and two...where his words got more jumbled--clearly he was not comfortable about sharing those tales even if he was sincere about them.


Obama: what is important are the mistakes that brought us here, change, change, change.

Guys...you're skirting the question. Not that I'm surprised by this, mind you...but really. I did enjoy the jab Obama made about McCain, Bush and their "orgy of spending." I thought that was a particularly good one. I thought they both made good points about business taxes: McCain on how competitive we're NOT in the global market when it comes to corporate taxes and why companies put their headquarters elsewhere, Obama on how when you look at all the loopholes we never seem to collect any where CLOSE to the business taxes we should on the companies that are here.

I'm glad both of them talked about their personal tax plans for us po' folk. I did not appreciate the "I'd like to know Obama's definition of rich" jab. From a man who hasn't had to worry about where his next McMansion comes from in 40 years. It was cheap, personal and for me it backfired especially as his tax plan calls to raise our personal income taxes for those who make below 140k a year. Kudos to Obama for reminding him and us of his "Our economy is essentially sound" which was one of the dumbest sound bites McCain has made in the last 60 days. Points also to McCain for turning that around and stressing his faith in America's workers, ingenuity, entrepreneurship and businesses. He could have stumbled on that point and he didn't.

Earmarks are abused but a wholesale deletion of them is not necessarily a good thing. Saying that anything earmarked will get automatically vetoed simply sets up the legislative branch against the executive branch and if McCain thinks for a minute that the congress is going to give him the carte blanche they extended to Bush in his first term--never challenging a veto, he's got another thing coming. Line item veto is perhaps more pragmatic and doesn't delay a good law for bad earmarks wholesale.

Spending wisely and cutting spending wisely are both important. Again I think this wholesale "we're not going to spend anywhere but on defense" is stupid. And no, that is not exactly what McCain said, but his words made clear he was falling back on fighting language and appeal to military nationalism when he spoke on domestic economic policy. That raised my hackles more than a bit. Especially when he had no real come back in regards to Obama's counter argument that we couldn't afford to axe spending on education and health care.

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Foreign Policy:

McCain: I've been there, I've talked to people, I've been here a long time, my record, my record, my record. Why haven't you gone there? (forget that he derided Obama's trip to Europe and the Middle east as a celebrity publicity tour and that he would only go over there as our President.)

Obama: I've said it then, I say it now, Our image and our reputation among our allies needs to be repaired and we cannot be afraid to sit at a table with our 'axis of evil' (the one time his tone became condescending)without pre-condition.

Oh lord didn't the phrase "without pre-condition" just go all over McCain like a bad rash?

I think both men, while differing on the HOW and sometimes on the WHY made some excellent points on foreign policy what has happened, what has to change, what needs to happen in the future.

McCain: This is the section of the debate where he fell back on "You don't understand." He especially hammered that home in regards to tactic vs. strategy. Now I suck at chess so I'm not going to sit here and say that I can tell you the difference between them when I see them. I can give you definitions but can I recognize the difference when they are in motion? I don't know. So McCain MIGHT have had a point there, but his praise of the surge and his insistence of victory in Iraq is counter to even Petraeus' on the ground in the hot spot assessment of Iraq now and in the immediate future.

McCain refused to admit they were saying the same thing about top diplomatic discussion with adversaries because he was stuck on this 'without pre-condition' thing. And yes Kissinger used that very phrase but was not talking about Presidential level discussion ie: a Camp David peace accord type talk. McCain would not drop that bit in his teeth and his belligerence in the face of that phrase overshadowed what he was trying to say.

I expected more from him when it came time to answer what are the lessons we've learned from Iraq. I was not satisfied with his answer at all. Neither was I satisfied with his assessment and plans for Afghanistan--again in spite of his laudatory comments on the great general (Petreaus) I found his words counter to the general's assessment of what's happening and what has to happen to secure the region. However, I DID find his explanation of the terrain and the intense tribal issues to be astute.

Obama: I was surprised and guardedly impressed with his command of knowledge and forethought in regards to our position as a global giant in International affairs. I agree with him on many points including the point that isolation by silence is a failed ploy and it has eroded our stance, our effectiveness, and our safety at home and abroad. I rolled my eyes on his sports language of "we took our eye off the ball." If he'd gone Knute Rockney on this I'm not sure that I wouldn't have thrown crackers at the screen. I had enough of that shit with Reagan thank you.

I think he has a very clear picture of what he wants to do and what he'll undertake as President in terms of foreign policy, shoring up our exhausted and over tapped military and how we repair our relationship with countries around the world. Reminding McCain about his gaff over Spain was a cheap shot. However, bringing up Bomb Bomb Iran was not. Maverick, gunslinging, white hat wearing good ol' boy diplomacy is exceptionally outdated. This is not Arizona, this is not a Gary Cooper western being shot in the hills of Ventura this is 21st century global world here. Posturing as an intimidation tool or even as a diplomatic tool is for people like Chaves and Ahmadinejad not the President of the United States of America.

I was more satisfied with Obama's answer about what we've learned in terms of lessons in Iraq. his thrust of how our singular focus on Iraq has hurt us and the globe in so many ways was very important. It needed to be said, whether its believed by others or not. It is believed by me, but I think that comes as no surprise to those of you who read me.


Overall: I think the debate was a draw. My own preference still is Obama and I thought he did well in this. McCain did much better than I was expecting him to and I'm glad, really. Had he been completely un-prepared or if he'd flown off the handle and this became a no contest, hands down win by Obama, I think it might have been funny for about 30 seconds and that's all. We deserve two worthy adversaries in this final stretch. We can't afford a complete debacle by either side at this point.

McCain did much better in this first debate than Bush did in either of his first debates against Gore or against Kerry. I'm now very curious to see what lessons they learned from this and what changes they do or don't make for the next one.