Sep 26th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Wrap-Up
Check out our comprehensive ThinkProgress roundup on the debate, lots of fact-checks and so forth.
All things considered, it’s about a draw. McCain got a couple of good punches in and so did Obama. Insofar as the idea is supposed to be that McCain has a domineering advantage on national security he certainly didn’t prove that point. And for the candidate who’s losing, a tie amounts to a loss. He needs to find opportunities to gain ground on Obama and he doesn’t seem to me to have gotten much done.
43 Responses to “Wrap-Up”
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September 26th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
That’s the spin I keep hearing, but I totally disagree. All McCain did with dent BHO’s image. I’m just gonna cut and paste Ezra, cause I think he nails it:
September 26th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
re Ezra’s “But McCain is conveying the fact that he thinks Obama an unprepared lightweight. One of these is a stronger claim than the other.”
No one who watched the debate would think Obama is an unprepared lightweight. McCain kept saying it, but it was obviously false.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
It’s definitely true that McCain showed a lot of disdain for Obama. But this is the kind of performance that would have played vastly better for McCain back in July. After the events of the past month? I’m not so sure. You can’t show disdain for your opponent’s naivete and ignorance after undermining your own credibility with a series of very dubious decisions and statements.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Yeah I think McCain had a more powerful performance. The continued use of “Senator Obama doesn’t understand” was obviously deliberate.
That being said, this was a serious debate. It focused on the issues. Obama went toe to toe with McCain, and clearly has some gravitas of his own. As much as McCain would like to diminish Obama, that much will be clear to anyone who watched. Obama’s no lightweight.
The fact of the matter is, this debate is in McCain’s wheelhouse. He needed to really knock it out of the park. I don’t think he made up enough room there. It’s hard to see how any gains aren’t going to be completely wiped out by the VP debate next week.
One last point: NBC had Biden on afterward, and mentioned that they invited Palin on the Republican side, but she declined the request. That asymmetry is painfully obvious.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
All I have to say is I’m still pissed at BO for that “beyond our wildest expectations” thing.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Guys: people who know McCain is lying are likely already voting for Obama.
People who don’t know much about politics or current events are going to read all of those statements as TRUE.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
I’ll call it a draw, but McCain acted like Obama was uppity. The ‘doesn’t understand’ line just seemed petty, especially once you realised he’d been drilled to say it a dozen times.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I don’t think this debate is going to have a major impact on anything, but jeez Obama– simplify your answers and stay on point. You know exactly what McCain is going to say if you try to tie him to Bush, so have a good response prepared or don’t waste your breath.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
If this debate had been about health care or taxes Obama would have won. Instead the fight seemed to center around foreign issues most of which McCain won. If you watch around 10:00 you start to see some periods where McCain passionately attacks Obama on foreign affairs. Obama not only fails to respond but often ends the discussion by saying he agrees with McCain. I can now see why Obama didn’t want any of those town hall debates.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
I thought the “You’re the douche who talked about exterminating North Korea and sang about bombing Iran” was a pretty great zinger, only one of the entire boring 2 hours IMO.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Why does Obama keep talking about how much he agrees with McCain? This is just a way of saying, go ahead and vote for McCain, I won’t mind.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Gordon,
Stop parroting talking points. Your guy actually did well tonight. You don’t have to use the prescripted material.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Not to mention the line on Spain. That was great. Team McCain will now have to explain something that most people simply haven’t heard about.
Gordon gekko: the focus of this first debate was on foreign policy. Thus all the foreign policy questions.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
I’ll definitely check out the TP roundup, despite the fact that they frequently serve as the original vector for lies favorable to the BHO campaign, lies which they later “correct” with a barely-noticed update well after the damage is done.
However, a very quick glance shows yet another TP “mistake”. McCain’s supposed “greeted” gaffe/hypocrisy/whatever worthless issue TP has was said in the context of the “post-war scene”. Has that happened? Is TP trying to mislead you? Is MattY helping?
P.S. McCain took The One to school, baby.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
The zinger was “Senator Obama doesn’t understand.”" The attack on Obama is that he’s glib but shallow. McCain pushed that line all night and Obama never figured out how to respond to it. And he had no comparable attack on McCain. How about “he says reform but he means more of the same.” Obama said “90%” one time – one time – and other than that he did not link McCain to Bush at all. McCain actually linked Obama to Bush more effectively than Obama linked McCain, and all Obama could do was grin and bear it.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
McCain used that “disdain” stuff on Romney… “hey sonny, I’ve been to Iraq a zillion times….”
I thought Obama was more aggressive than in past debates, and that was a positive. Considering the main topic was foreign policy, McCain’s supposed strong point, I give the win to Obama. The rookie had plenty to say.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Considering the main topic was foreign policy, McCain’s supposed strong point
I hate this line of spin. A loss is a still loss. It doesn’t matter who has home court.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Obama missed quite a few openings that I thought were pretty obvious. He kept talking about lobbyists in Washington in the economics portion, but didn’t say “like the ones running John’s campaign” every single time like he should have. The worst for me was that stupid smug “What are you going to say when Ahmadinejad says he’s going to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, ‘no you won’t'?” comment from McCain. Obama should have jumped on that and said “That’s exactly what we’re going to say, because in case you’ve forgotten John, this is the United States of America and we’ve been facing down petty tyrants and bullies since the revolutionary war, and we don’t let tyrants threaten our allies. We’re going to say ‘no you won’t', and we’re going to conduct diplomacy, not hide from them with ‘preconditions’”. It was an obvious opening and he just deferred to Lehrer. Shitty.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I think this was different than others, Obama didn’t need to trounce McCain. He just needed to look like he belonged on the same stage.
I think the who won questions doesn’t apply here. In the cases of Gore and Kerry vs. Bush you had guys on one side who clearly knew what they were talking about vs. a guy reciting talking points.
Here what you had were 2 guys who both clearly understand their policies and were able to get them across and make pretty clear where they differ. If you are a McCain supporter you still are, if your are an Obama supporter you still are. If you were undecided you have a clear distinction on a few key issues. I would think if you are an undecided who wants to support Obama but isn’t sold yet you should have been convinced that he meets the Commander in Chief threshold.
Also McCain clearly owns the Iraq War now, he did nothing to distance himself from Bush. Given that 70% of the country is against the war I can’t see that helping him.
Also gotta give Jim Lehrer props for making it a more substantive than usual. Part of that may be simply that there were two candidates able to carry on an actual discussion, could you imagine Bush actually doing that?
September 26th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Obama kicked McCain’s his ass. Real good.
The flurry on Iraq and the flury on McCain’s “muddle through” comment on Afghanistan drew blood and McCain had nothing but “I know” and “he doesn’t” without ever troubling himself to explain WHY either of those statements happened to be true.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Obama didn’t need to trounce McCain. He just needed to look like he belonged on the same stage…Here what you had were 2 guys who both clearly understand their policies
See, this is where I disagree. The dominant media narrative for the last couple of weeks has been that McCain doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. A strong, decapitating win for Obama could have settled that. But he never pulled the knives out.
And not only did Obama keep saying McCain was right (IMO, FWIW, whatever), he kept saying that even Bush agreed with him. That’s supposed to be a winning point???
September 26th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Okay, scythia, forget the spin, I thought Obama won tonight.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Who knows, maybe I’m just tripping…
September 26th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I just think Obama needs to win strongly. I think he needs to take 55% into Election Day to win by 52%. The debates should be his chance to separate.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
with 52%, my bad…
September 26th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Count me as among those who think that Obama’s comments on the strategic wisdom of actions like invading Iraq pretty clearly demonstrated that McCain’s constant refrains that he “didn’t understand” the issues were plainly wrong. His seriousness and clarity were retort enough for McCain’s sneering dismissals.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
On heathcare- McCain doesn’t seem to understand that uninsured can’t talk over what health insurance to get with their family doctor. The uninsured don’t have family doctors.
September 27th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Matt Y, you say “insofar” in just about every post, but I don’t think that word means what you think it means. I’m pretty sure the definition is something like “I went to college – no really, I’m serious!”.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:06 am
I liked the way John Cole put it:
This was a clear win for Obama, at worst a tie. McCain needed a win, and did not get it.
Next week, Palin talks for 90 minutes. Think about that.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:30 am
I’m lousy at predicting what the typical undecided voter will take from these things. But with regard to McCain’s visible contempt for Obama, I am at a loss to even understand the Ezra Klein spin on it. In that regard, the Scythia comment up thread gets it exactly backwards. It’s not about people thinking that McCain is “lying” – obviously, he really does have contempt for Obama. But how is that going to affect the average undecided voter? Clearly,, if they felt that way themselves, they wouldn’t be undecided – they would be for McCain. Obama didn’t make a significant gaffe, or otherwise justify the contempt; why, then, would the typical undecided voter feel that McCain’s attitude was justified? No, unless someone is predisposed to view Obama that way, it just comes off as rude, inappropriate, and crotchety on McCain’s part.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more the Ezra Klein argument seems not just wrong, but bizarrely wrong.
Which isn’t to say that the debate went perfectly for Obama. I don’t agree that Obama needs to be up by 10 (55-45) to win; if anything, I think he will marginally outperform his immediately pre-election day poll numbers, as the ground game and a small under counting of Obama supporters in most polls outweighs any Bradley effect. But certainly a more clear Obama win could have virtually ended the race tonight. That didn’t happen – but that was more because McCain came out and did a creditable job, as opposed to representing a significant deficiency on Obama’s part.
September 27th, 2008 at 1:51 am
I’m kind of missing why everyone thinks McCain did such a great job in this debate. For sure, McCain is a fighter, threw in a few jabs, and demonstrated that he has world experience.
But when it comes to actually rebutting Obama’s points, offering alternative solutions, laying out a vision, McCain can’t seem to effectively deliver an argument as to why Obama’s ideas are unsound or tenuous.
McCain’s rebuttals amounted to nothing more than a slew of name-dropping and statements like, “Obama doesn’t get it. I know the issues because I’ve been around longer.” Look, just saying someone doesn’t get it or saying that you are superior doesn’t make it so.
September 27th, 2008 at 3:11 am
First of all, it is hard to debate someone who is willing to shamelessly lie (raising taxes on those making 42 grand, I opposed the American occupation of Lebanon).
Second, the “just doesn’t understand” line doesn’t work if you are debating someone who, pretty obviously, demonstrates that they DO understand the issues from their debate responses. It just comes across as condescending and goofy.
September 27th, 2008 at 7:13 am
You people are insane. “All things considered, it’s about a draw”. You can’t seriously believe that Matt. Did they not have the “worm” graphic on American television or something? All the time Obama was speaking, the favourability line was rising steadily, and every time McCain opened his mouth, there was a notch downwards. REP08_WTA lost two and a half percentage points on the IEM over the course of two hours. Obama, by a mile.
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