All the cool kids are doing it, so my thinking during the debate tonight:
9:06 PM: Neither one has any idea who they’re appointing Treasury Secretary, or they’re not saying. A bit surprising, that would make a difference in the coming weeks.
9:12 PM: Is it just me, or do you think that “cronies” are people that old people are more likely to have than middle-class people?
9:20 PM: Five George Bush budgets? Shouldn’t that number be eight? I like the hit on the $5 trillion increase since 2000, but I’m skeptical if people are actually taking in that number.
9:21 PM: And here’s your classic example of innumeracy: McCain talks about programs that are drops in the overall bucket. Does bipartisanship play as a reply when the question is “how can we trust either of you?”
9:23 PM: Wonder if Obama will bring up the McCain Medicare cuts in his rebuttal. Whoops, looks like Brokaw beat him to it.
9:24 PM: meta note, I was assuming McCain would try some game-changing approach tonight. If he is, it’s not on the table yet. So far, he’s fairly soporific. So is Obama, but he can afford to be.
9:26 PM: watch the body language in the audience. So far, I see two or three Obama skeptics, but 50/50 when McCain is talking. Waiting for a McCain audience shot to confirm this.
9:28 PM: how anyone thinks that any answer can be contained in one minute is absolutely beyond me.
9:29 PM: dayenu with the overhead projector, John.
9:31 PM: Is McCain wandering around aimlessly in the background?
9:33 PM: Noting that McCain’s line is “Americans can do it”, Obama’s is “more shared sacrifice.”
9:36 PM: McCain is comparing Obama to Hoover? Really? Does anyone remember who Hoover was? (You’d think McCain would.)
9:40 PM: Fortune 500 CEO is Obama’s overheard projector.
9:41 PM: So McCain is saying that he’s unpopular with both parties? Yeah, that’s a great selling point.
9:48 PM: Clearly, McCain didn’t vote for the bailout plan thanks to its goodies. No, wait….
9:52 PM: My question for both candidates: are there any problems that aren’t “major challenges that have to be solved in the next two years?” Sounds to me like the gestalt of all these issues is that we’re already halfway to hell.
9:57 PM: An hour in, and Obama and McCain camera angles aren’t showing the same audience members. I’m seeing much more blue background with McCain. Hard to compare audience reactions when you can’t see them.
10:00 PM: Cheap shot alert: I guess a 6,000-year-old Earth still has corners.
10:04 PM: Brokaw: explain the Obama and McCain Doctrines. You have 90 seconds. Go.
10:07 PM: I have trouble understanding why McCain thinks he’s perceived as the cool hand at the tiller.
10:08 PM: McCain is saying that staying in Iraq has improved our reputation and our ability to act elsewhere? That seems to be the corollary of his argument not to leave.
10:12 PM: Wait, am I crazy, or were many of the “Afghan freedom fighters” the people who went on to be warlords and Taliban extremists?
10:12 PM: I’ll freely admit that I’m concerned about Obama’s plans for expansion of the Afghan war, but it seems to me that he’s phrasing that belligerence as clearly and specifically as one could hope. What part of “as the Commander-in-Chief, I’ll act in favor of American sovereignty” doesn’t he understand? I thought Republicans were supposed to be solid behind that.
10:15 PM: McCain: “I’ll follow Osama to the gates of hell, and I know how to do it, but stay vewwy vewwy quiet while I’m hunting wabbits.”
10:18 PM: We have to do all sorts of things differently, but we have to maintain the same strategy. Huh? What am I missing here?
10:20 PM: Shorter McCain: “We’re not going to have another Cold War with Russia. Instead, it’s much better to risk a hot war with Russia.”
10:22 PM: Obama answer not much better. Am I being too harsh to both of them that I want better specifics in their ninety seconds?
10:24 PM: McCain, “if I say yes”, seems to think he’s already president? Can’t imagine that Obama could get away with that kind of phrasing.
10:26 PM: Funny, the bald guy in the red shirt with the question about Israel doesn’t look Jewish.
10:26 PM: McCain dodging the question on unilateral defense of Israel. Obama talking about nukes, also just saying that “all options are on the table”. Wish either one of them would point out that after a medium-sized nuclear attack on Israel, there’d be nothing left to defend — after that, it’d all be about retaliation over the smoking crater.
10:33 PM: Again with the “we’re really in the shitter” language from McCain. Want to go back and see if this has only been from him and Brokaw, or if Obama also joined in.
Initial response: I’d call this one pretty much a tie — that is, I think Obama’s answers were more thoughtful and responsive to the questions, but then, I would think that, so I might be wrong. But I’d also say a tie goes in Obama’s favor; working on the theory that McCain needs to do something to turn the electoral tide, he sure as hell didn’t have it prepped for this evening.