The Demeanor Debate
John McCain spent 90 minutes tonight telling voters Barack Obama “doesn’t understand” what America is facing, as Obama demonstrated a broad grasp of the 21st century issues besetting the economy and national security.
Body language was revealing in McCain’s tight grin that occasionally morphed into a smirk under criticism, while Obama featured a relaxed smile and at least half a dozen times responded with a generous “John is right, but…”
Behind the difference in demeanor was the familiar clash of experience vs. change that is at the heart of the contest, with McCain distancing himself from Bush-Cheney and impressively name-dropping world leaders (but getting wrong the new president of Pakistan) to persuade voters that Obama is too naïve to deal with a dangerous world.
There was no defining “gotcha” moment but, in light of Obama’s need to show persuadable voters that he has the intellect and disposition to occupy the Oval Office, he made progress as did McCain by appearing forceful and knowing to offset doubts about his age and hair-trigger temper.
Most of the time, the candidates talked past each other but after McCain had hammered away at the need to cut government spending, Obama confronted him with:
“John, it’s been your president who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time who presided over this increase in spending. This orgy of spending and enormous deficits you voted for almost all of his budgets. So to stand here and after eight years and say that you’re going to lead on controlling spending…is, you know, kind of hard to swallow.”
What is unknowable is how the debate affected the unspoken subtext of this election–race.
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6 Responses to “The Demeanor Debate”
The Debate: Some First Reactions
Teh Nutroots | My opinion? What Chris Rock said. AND THE WIN GOES TO….. ::drum roll:: . The New Republic reports: For what it’s worth: The Frank Luntz and Stanley Greenberg focus groups went overwhelmingly for Obama. And a CBS poll of undecideds wen…
We are facing a great depression in this nation again. Neither of these candidates have a clue. And yet all the political blogs and television commentators mindlessly carry on about debating style. Barack Obama and John McCain had absolutely nothing to say about what to do to get the nation out of this disaster. Who lost the debate? America.
I actually agree. Knowing what we are currently facing, the debate topic should have been switched to allow the candidates to deal with the bailout for the entire 90 minutes.
Probably, it would have been revealed that neither totally understands whats happening or how to solve it. Obama's closing of tax loopholes on business would help- but what's to prevent those businesses from moving overseas or shifting taxable profits into charities or poorly performing ventures?
It upset me that Obama seemed ready to pitch energy independence for his priorities early childhood ed and universal health care. McCain did talk about cutting spending on wasteful defense contracts— but overall he has not succeeded in doing so over the 26 years he's been in office-why think he'll do it now?
I think that's partly true. I'd bet Obama has a plan for solving it, but doesn't want to commit to anything in public. Which is unfortunate, because good leadership is what we need, not endless politicking.
I agree with Thingumbob too. The economic crisis was the 200 pound gorilla in the room, and both candidates largely tried to ignore it. There was the question about whether each man would vote yes to the bill that's in negotiation, which they gave short replies to, and then the (excellent, IMO) question about how this will change their previous proposals or priorities. I was shocked that there was little mention at all of how they'd reform of the government oversight of the financial industry, nor any mention of investigating how we got to this point in order to insure that catastrophic policy mistakes could be avoided in the future.
Good point about oversight of the financial industry, CS- I hadn't thought about that. I'm wondering if there's any hope that it won't happen again in the future. After every panic, depression and financial scandal there's talk of how to safeguard financial institutions, but human greed and stupidity always find a loophole in whatever is legislated. This makes the S&L crisis look like a tea party!