The Debate… well, the speech…. well, whatever that was last night

Ok, I would like to start off with a little present for both candidates:

Seriously, why even have the one minute time limit rule if neither candidate is going to abide by it. At one point, Brokaw reminded the candidates of their one minute time limit. The result of the reminder? Obama spent two minutes and eight seconds on the next question and McCain spent two minutes and three seconds on his next response. At least Brokaw had the courage to stand up to the candidates and continually remind them about the length of their responses until they reluctantly began to comply.

Aside from learning that neither candidate can tell time or read the cute traffic light that they had on the floor, I do not feel that I took that much away from last nights debate. Essentially, each candidate used each question as an opportunity to repeat the same platforms that they have been spewing since the campaigning began.

The town hall format was a big reason that each candidate was able to deliver stock responses to the typical questions about the economy, the war, etc. Since the candidates were not truly debating, there was very little back and forth that forced to candidates to actually argue and discuss topics. The topics that did spark some back and forth were the war/foreign relations and a question concerning prioritizing oil, health care, and education. Obama called for prioritizing the issues but McCain advocated a policy of attacking them all at once. Neither made an overly convincing point for their view, but the topic at least generated some back and forth that made the “debate” interesting.

Each candidate had one point that they returned to throughout the debate. Obama hammered home that McCain was going to cut taxes for the richest while the middle class and poor continued to suffer. Obama’s reasons for emphasizing this point are varied. First, this accusation is a common rallying cry of Democrats whenever they run against Republicans. Also, Obama’s demographic that he is said to be weakest with are working class Americans. Obama is trying to appeal to the middle class workers when he continually reminds the audience that McCain’s policies favor the rich.

McCain’s point of emphasis that he made both directly and subtly was that he will fight against corruption in Washington. This was a major topic in his RNC acceptance speech, and he mentioned it numerous times last night during his responses to questions. McCain is attempting to maintain his self-created image as an agent of change and a force fighting against corruption.

McCain also made numerous attempts to shift blame off of the Republican Party for the recent economic struggles. McCain continually harped on the point that a Democratic Senate has been responsible for recent economic legislation. He made the point that he has fought the “pork barrel” spending and attempted to pass the right economic legislation. His point is effective to a point, and he does show that the Democratic controlled legislative branch has done as little as the Republican controlled executive branch to prevent and combat the economic crisis. However, Obama was still able to reference McCain’s own voting records to show that even McCain has been guilty of voting in a way that does not align with his platform/claims.

All in all, I thought Obama was slightly better in the debate, and most of his advantage was due to the fact that he is simply a better public speaker than McCain. The format allowed each candidate to recite their platform as they have at all their campaign stops, and it very hard to actually declare a winner when doing so essentially amounts to choosing whose platform speech you liked the best.

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