Comments on: The Economy: Did McCain trump Obama?

By: Vivian

Vivian — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 05:19:01 +0000

Annabel–thank you for some sanity about the debates. It’s refreshing to know someone else believes we can all survive a couple of days without a rice-pudding-eating contest cum political debate between Obama and McCain. Now that this epic event has passed, and I have read the transcripts, I can see that I missed nothing by electing to go to an ESL class with some international students instead of sitting by the boob tube Friday PM.

I’m not sure which would have been more boring, to watch the debates or merely read them online. BO restates each sentence he utters, so he could have used 1/2 the time. For me, there were 2 interesting moments in the debate:

1. McCain’s wonderfully subtle allusion to the presidential seal and
2. Lehrer’s question about which government programs would be cut or reduced to pay for the buy out.

It is a shame that in our short-attention-span world, candidates are given so little time to answer a question. The allotted 2 minutes seems to have been perfectly calculated to provide no new information while allowing sufficient time for grand-standing, yet protecting both candidates from hanging themselves.
I wish more time had been allotted for the questions.

By: Annabel

Annabel — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:50:29 +0000

Vic, there will be debates. No one suggested there wouldn’t be. The question was whether one of them could be postponed for a few days. As for dealing with more than one crisis at a time, there is only one – the financial meltdown. A scheduled debate is not a crisis. It’s an appointment that can be moved. There is such a thing as prioritizing. What’s more important, making sure our economy doesn’t collapse, or going on television on Friday night to answer the same superficial questions from the moronic press instead of going on television to answer their questions a few days later? The election is 40 days away. Trust me, no one will be deprived of hearing from these two candidates.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:09:42 +0000

In fact, it’s beginning to look like McCain took Obama to school.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:04:58 +0000

And the beauty of the republican plan is that it is NOT the one that Bush wanted.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:01:39 +0000

If Dick Morris is right, not only will McCain show up for the debate, but he will be behind a bailout bill that does not fork over 700 billion dollars to Paulson. Supposedly, the republicans are crafting a package in which the government becomes insurers rather than lenders. According to Gringrich, the vast majority of americans will be fully behind this plan.

By: Vic

Vic — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:21:45 +0000

I think suspending the campaign and debate is a bad idea, primarily because come November 4 we will all hopefuly be voting for one of these candidates and frankly speaking I would like to hear what they have to say head to head about a number of issues.

And as a number of people here have stated, they need to be able to deal with more than crisis at a time. I think not debating simply gives the American people less time to make an informed decision.

By: Barry Dauphin

Barry Dauphin — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:35:54 +0000

Although I have thought the debate should go on (as I don’t know that McCain and Obama have to be in Washington—but I’m willing to be proven wrong about that), McCain has achieved something interesting. Obama has much less prep time. Obama needs much prep time. McCain could probably walk onto stage at the last minute and be ready to go.

…Fade to self indulgent fantasy….Obama heads to Mississippi early. McCain stays behind but helps broker a deal. Deal happens and it looks a lot like what Andy Kessler in today’s WSJ laid out. McCain walks onto stage at last minute and uses his time in the first question to talk about the deal and how he expects the American taxpayers to make money off of this and reduce the national debt, then onto the disgrace of Sarah Palin being disinvited from the Iran protest…

OK too much to hope for.

By: Huan

Huan — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:29:15 +0000

Zogby now has McCain up by 2 as opposed to down by 3 last week Gallup now has McCain even with Obama after being down by 6 last week. Are these response to McCain's maneuver? Uncertainty with Obama? Regardless, it suggests that there is room for McCain to maneuver when it comes to the economy.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:44:34 +0000

Prediction: there will be a debate. Then McCain will return to Washington if the bill isn’t passed yet.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:24:32 +0000

It’ll be interesting to see how Obama votes on the bill. This really is a Russian Roulette moment.