I watched the McCain-Obama town hall debate on CNN this evening, but before I listened to any of the comments by the “best political team on television” (yawn), I had already decided it was a draw with one exception: I thought McCain showed more warmth and empathy in connecting with members of the audience who got to ask questions. For example, a man who mentioned his Naval background wound up shaking hands with McCain.
Who would have guessed that each campaign would issue statements declaring its candidate the winner?
Jill Hazelbaker, McCain's communications director, said:
"Tonight, John McCain won the debate. He was the only man who demonstrated he had the independence and strength to take on everything that's broken in Washington and on Wall Street. John McCain had a clear plan for improving the lives of Americans -- keeping them in their homes through his American Homeownership Resurgence Plan. From Barack Obama, we heard half-truths and contradictions between what he says and what he has done. He said he supported offshore drilling but has opposed it for months. He talked about tax cuts but he voted for higher taxes 94 times and promises increased taxes on small businesses. He talked about reducing the size of government but has proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in new government spending. Tonight, Barack Obama had an opportunity to level with the American people, but instead all we heard was more of the same."
Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe stated:
“Barack Obama won a resounding victory in John McCain’s favorite debate format because he made the case for change that will rebuild the middle class. The American people asked tough questions tonight, and only Barack Obama was in touch with their struggles and offered clear and passionate answers about creating jobs, reducing health care costs, cutting taxes for 95% of working families, and responsibly ending the war in Iraq. John McCain was all over the map on the issues, and he is so angry about the state of his campaign that he referred to Barack Obama as ‘that one’ – last time he couldn’t look at Senator Obama, this time he couldn’t say his name. The McCain campaign said, ‘if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose,’ and John McCain definitely lost tonight."
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what planet were you on last night, virginia, if you think mccain won?
ReplyDeletestephen hayes -- at the weekly standard -- claimed that obama's performance was "flawless".
roger simon -- politico -- "mcain lost by not winning" -- a statement that only makes sense in simon's context, but simon is by nature a gop supporter
what got me was the fact that -- at the close -- mccain wouldn't shake obama's hand.
and that boondoggle that mccain brought up about the gov't buying the "bad" mortgages wont fly with his core constituents
Hi Ray,
ReplyDeleteI’ve noticed that any time you leave a comment at Katalusis or send me an email, you usually preface it with a condescending remark, such as “What planet were you on, Virginia?”
By the way, nowhere in my post following the debate did I declare McCain the winner. I referred to the contest as a draw in both the headline and in the content. In my opinion both the Democratic and Republican tickets in 2008 are mediocre, so I’m fairly neutral this time around.