I'm going to open a thread for readers who are watching the McCain-Obama debate. I'm here at the office tonight watching the debate and writing tomorrow's editorial about it, so I can't liveblog. But you all feel free to have at it. When it's all over, and I've filed my piece, I'll weigh in with my take on the evening's proceedings.
I think I speak for all of us when I say: thank heaven this is the last one!
UPDATE: OK, that's over. And so is the McCain campaign. He was more aggressive than he's been so far, and he came close to landing some blows on Obama. But he never really connected, and for the most part this debate was as platitudinous as they all have been. McCain came off as sour, agitated and petulant. Obama -- man, nothing rattles that guy. McCain was two tics away from a vein-popping "You can't handle the truth!" Jack Nicholson moment, I felt. At one point, I thought: Which one of these men would I want in the White House when the 3 a.m. phone call comes in?
It's strange: it's been my sense that the one thing McCain has going for him is that as frightening as the world situation is right now, voters would want to have a solid, experienced hand at the wheel through the tempest. Watching tonight's event, it's undeniable that if that's what you're voting on, you'll want to vote for Barack Obama.
As most Americans surely will. After tonight, McCain is done. The RNC ought to pull money from McCain and use it to save as many imperiled senators as they can.
UPDATE: Apparently I'm getting some traffic from Hot Air. I took down the post of the McCainiac who called me a "faggot" for saying that Obama (for whom I am not going to vote) is winning and will win. I found this particular comment revealing:
What a pathetic post. Rod you should never give up. If you do though, never post it in public!! This will only discourage hopeful Republicans.
In other words, don't draw negative conclusions from the observable facts, but if you do, keep them to yourself, because it might discourage people from dealing with reality. Got it. That's a healthy movement, for sure. Power of positive thinking, and all that. Is this a political party, or a religion?
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This is what we get when we put up a weak candidate. And once McCain got the nomination, he was handicapped by age and a strained long term relationship with the party powers. That's why we got Sarah Palin. Had Romney or even Huckabee been the nominee, there would have been no need to appease the base with an "rock star" caliber VP candidate.
I fear now that her political career may be fatally damaged because she was cast into the national spotlight before she was ready for it. Remember Dan Quayle? She will be a repeat--a rising star plucked too soon for the national spotlight. Once Quayle left the White House in 1992 his political career was over. He was the original VP deer in the headlights candidate. Palin on November 5th may doomed to repeat history in his stead.
Not only has McCain inflicted near-fatal damage to our party in his quest for personal glory, he may well be taking what was once a sure fire star of tomorrow into political oblivion with him. This is unforgivable.
The "McCaniac's" post you removed confirmed the validity of the decision I made back in the year 2000 -- I returned back to the Democratic party after a 10 year stint as a Republican (being a Reagan Democrat initially) and after McCain lost to Bush (I voted for McCain in the primary but Nader as a protest vote in the general). I finally recognized (in my opinion) how the once rational Republican party leadership had become taken over by those who would use and cultivate anti-intellectualism, religious bigotry, homophobia, xenophobia, division, demonetization of opponents, appeals to theocracy, and general themes of the right-wing lunatic fringe and John Birch Society all for the sake of power without regard to what it does to our society.
The McCain of 2000 rejected that approach but the New McCain of 2008 seems to have embraced it and is paying the price. I think his uncomfortable body language and awkward demeanor on the debate stage is the physical manifestation of his inner goodness and conscience showing his discomfort with the path he's on. Perhaps he had no other choice due to the corner the party had painted him into with the "base". But (to borrow a phrase), for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the White House, and lose his own soul?
I saw his inner goodness come out when he called down the crowds at his rallies (where cries of "kill him" had been yelled) and said Obama wasn't a terrorist but was a decent fellow citizen and family man with which he just had policy disagreements. At that point his face had a look of shame and regret and I actually felt deep sorrow for him like one feels for the fall of a once great man.
I believe we are now seeing a massive political realignment where the US public is rejecting that brand of social and economic "conservatism" and returning to the "classic liberalism" of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt variety. And how ironic that we may be entering a second Great Depression as we do so!
Peace be with you.
Actually we NEED "Socialized" medicine for a number of very important reasons, and there is no evidence that "socialized" medicine has diminished or significantly impaired freedom in either the UK or Canada.
First CBO Director Peter Orzsag has been warning Congress for the last year that unless health care costs are brought under control Medicare and Medicaid will cost as much in ten years as the entire federal government costs now. The problems aren't limited to Medicare and Medicaid; the cost private insurance is subject to, and will reflect the same trends.
Second every advanced nation that has adopeted universal health coverage and/or a single payer system has been able to bring their costs DOWN. Health care expenditures, in the US, per capita, or per person are nearly twice as much as in Europe and Canda, yet we have 47 million people uninsured, at least that many who are under-insured and health outcomes that are no better. Taiwan moved from a private to a single-payer health care system and also realized lower costs. Rampant commercialization has resulted in billions in redundant administrative costs, unnecessary medical procedures (see Dartmouth Atlas) and billions wasted on the marketing of drugs such as Viagra.
Neither McCain's or Obama's health care plan goes far enough. Obama's plan merely addresses the symptoms of the problems, not the causes, and in costly fashion. McCain would make our health care system much worse, because he wants to operate under the dangerously false premise that there can be an efficient market for health care, as if deciding where and when to have an operation is as easy as buying a refrigerator.
"But considering the abject failure of unfettered capitalism, maybe a little socialism would be a good thing."
If you think we've had anything like 'unfettered capitalism' in the U.S. you need a serious economics lesson, as well as new glasses. The problem is not only over-regulation, but over-regulation that favors big business. Big gummint and big bizness have been shacking up together for lo these many years, and the progeny from that union ain't purty. And guess what? That's not 'unfettered capitalism.'
"the religious, middle-class right that has gone along with this has simply been taken for a ride by the Bush/Cheney/Rove criminals, who manipulated the gullible with fears of terrorism and simplistic, patriotic jingoism."
There is a certain amount of truth to this, but the cure for it is not Obama's redistributionist tax-and-handouts plan. That cure will end up being worse than the disease. There is never such a thing as 'a little socialism.' The government never gives back what it takes, and never stops taking once it starts. They've got their hand in your pocket from the minute you wake up in the morning till you go to bed each night. The answer isn't to allow them to start using both hands.
What we need here is a middle class revolt against both parties -- the big government 'answers' of the Dems, and the big business 'answers' of the GOP.
Rod: "In other words, don't draw negative conclusions from the observable facts, but if you do, keep them to yourself, because it might discourage people from dealing with reality. Got it. That's a healthy movement, for sure. Power of positive thinking, and all that. Is this a political party, or a religion."
Rod, are you saying that religion is an unhealthy denial of reality? :)
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