Some quick thoughts on the debate before I hit the sack and forget everything I thought (although admittedly, I already have done economics homework between the debate and now so my brain is addled).
- Overall, based both just on watching the debate and on the CNN poll that was occurring during the debate, I think Obama came out on top.
- I feel like Obama is a much better speaker than John McCain even in this style of debate. Obama has a clear point that he makes in each snippet and he brings different arguments together smoothly. McCain has a tendency to wander or not have much of a single point to his speeches.
- I liked what McCain had to say about military spending reform. Too bad that is one of the only things I liked about what he said.
- McCain's body language and tone of voice following the social security question was downright offensive. He honestly thinks its that easy of a problem to solve? Then why hasn't he solved it yet! It was so condescending, and unnecessarily so.
- I have to question McCain's coaching. There are certain issues that it was clear he "lost" on in the first debate, such as the war in Iraq, yet he voluntarily brought these things up again as if they are his strong points. I am not sure that was such a wise decision. I also would be very curious, if anyone can answer, what exactly a "win" in Iraq would look like now.
- Overall, this debate was extremely tame, more of the same, which in the end favors Obama. It was pretty boring, especially given the importance of it. Also, I disliked Tom Brokaw hosting, I disliked the question selection (seriously? Is Russia an evil empire? Only a moron would say yes to that after the axis of evil debachle!), and I disliked the format in general. In the first debate, the format was way to relaxed and left the candidates trying to come up with crap to say. In this debate, the format was too short and choppy and it was hard for the candidates to get points across. I hope the third presidential debate is formatted like the vice presidential debate, which I thought went very smoothly.
1 comment:
I haven't watched the second debate yet, but I too have been wondering since the first debate (well, really, much longer than that) what exactly a "win" in Iraq would be!
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