Oct 15th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
Highlights
Unless I’m mistaken:
- McCain spoke derisively of the idea of “spreading the wealth” — he doesn’t want the non-wealthy to get a piece of the action.
- McCain scare-quoted “health” in the phrase “‘health’ of the mother,” and argued that concern for pregnant women’s health is an extreme position.
- McCain dismissed the idea of wanting nuclear plants to be safe as somehow obviously absurd.
All told, a weird performance that seemed directed at people already inside the conservative bubble — people who think that when the public says it doesn’t like Bush, they mean they think Bush has spent too much money.
UPDATE: Also McCain doesn’t know the difference between Down’s Syndrome and autism.
67 Responses to “Highlights”
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October 15th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Am I the only one who thinks that McCain prepared for the debate by sucking down a bottle of wine and a fistful of NoDoz about 20 minutes before the start time? Dude was seriously bizarre and incoherent most of the time. It made his wandering of the set at the last debate look downright normal and rational.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I love the fact that McCain is now running as a crackpot wingnut. The further to the right he runs, the worse he will do. More importantly, it demonstrates how thoroughly discredited the GOP is.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I agree about the health of the mother issue. I don’t think he meant that nuclear power shouldn’t be safe. He said that it’s ridiculous to talk about that because we know how to make safe nuclear power.
I don’t think he took NoDoz, because otherwise he wouldn’t have looked like his head was going to explode almost every time Obama answered a question.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
McCain scare-quoted “health” in the phrase “‘health’ of the mother,”
Dog-whistle for “abortion for any reason.” Just like “Sarah Palin knows about special needs children” is a dog-whistle for, “She didn’t abort a Downs syndrome baby.” To which Obama granted that Palin had some accomplishments for special needs children, which she doesn’t. McCain didn’t say she had, just that she knows about the issue. Because if she doesn’t… damn.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
It looked like McCain was wearing a mask. A very creepy mask.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Well, if by “directed at people already inside the conservative bubble,” you meant the media, who’ll now proceed to ignore McCain’s lies and idiocy, and praise him for trying to make it a close race, then yeah, I’d say there’s a chance he’s reaching his target…
October 15th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
McCain dismissed the idea of wanting nuclear plants to be safe as somehow obviously absurd.
On that note:
How expensive are nuclear plants? And… how’s that work w/ a spending freeze?
How long does it take to build a nuclear generator? And we’re going to have this done in time to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil w/in the next 4 years?
How exactly does nuclear power replace foreign oil anyway?
October 15th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
He wants a spending freeze. He also proposed new fitness and nutrition programs in schools. And he wants to give everyone $5,000 for health insurance. But first, that spending freeze.
Did I miss any other new programs?
October 15th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
“. . . a weird performance that seemed directed at people already inside the conservative bubble.”
Agree completely. The Obama campaign really needs to highlight McCain’s “Congratulations: you’re rich!” line.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
McCain scare-quoted “health” in the phrase “‘health’ of the mother,” and argued that concern for pregnant women’s health is an extreme position.
Obama definitely struck the better note on that. McCain played to his base, Obama went for the middle ground.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Undecided voter “Kelly” from Kansas City, MO on MSNBC is a total babe.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I suspect that the test score evaluations of DC voucher program don’t tell the same story that the 9,000 person waiting list tells.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
My friends, for 5 long years McCain couldn’t quote an obscure plumbing business executive 20 times in one debate, during the worst economic crisis since 1929. That is because John McCain was in jail, as a POW.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
what about Joe the Plumber? it’s all joe-appeal this year, everyone knows that. you must capture the joe vote.
http://www.supercollide.com/2008/10/joe-plumber.html
October 15th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
McCain also said that building nuclear power plants would help get us off of oil. How? Nuclear power plants generate electricity, not transportation fuels.
He also emphasized “oil from the Middle East and Venezuela” — while oil is a fungible commodity — for energy security purposes, supply disruptions or constraints anywhere eventually affect global prices, no matter where “we” get “our oil” from.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Did I miss any other new programs?
Well, defense, entitlements, the mortgage purchase. Oh, and tax cuts for everyone?
October 15th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Did McCain really confuse Down Syndrome with autism? Like twice?
October 15th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
> How expensive are nuclear plants? And…
> how’s that work w/ a spending freeze?
I think the estimate for a plant in the 1250 MW range in one of the proposed standard GE, Westinghouse, or Hitachi designs is around $3 billion (compared to $5 billion in 1985 dollars for plants of similar size completed around that time frame). But unless we are converting to the Austrian model of state-owned nuclear plants that cost isn’t born by the USG; it is born by the investing utilities or independent generating companies. What those entities want from the feds is guarantees that there won’t be another round of retroactive regulation and retroactive changes to the financial environment as there was in the 1980 time period.
Cranky
October 15th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
David Freddoso is on CNN being kinda batty.
What’s up with CNN and its studio bloggers?
Although I’ll note that Jane Hamsher looked rather smashing during the coverage of the last debate.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
This was the first time in the entire campaign, either primary or general, where I thought Obama mopped the floor with his opponent. He took every attack and either disarmed it or threw it back in McCain’s face. The moment where he gently pointed out that McCain’s “across the board spending freeze” meant his previous response was bullshit… that was priceless. Throw in McCain’s weird, callous remarks on several issues and his unfunny jokes, and I thought this was a slam dunk.
Naturally, all the pundits seem to think McCain won.
Who knows. I’m not an undecided voter or a Joe Plumber, so I obviously wasn’t the target audience.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Did McCain really confuse Down Syndrome with autism? Like twice?
I think he implied that Gov Palin herself was suffering from autism, and still made it big and became the Republican VP nominee.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Greg P: “Nuclear power plants generate electricity, not transportation fuels.”
Electric vehicles, my friends.
Would it be out of sorts to comment here on the liveblog? How ya gonna stop me?
9:45: McCain praises Palin for “giving money back to the taxpayers,”
The problem with this isn’t that Palin raised an oil windfall tax that McCain opposes. It’s that Alaskans don’t pay taxes.
9:55: Obama said America invented the automobile industry. In fact…
Rest of the nitpick mentions how the automobile is not an American invention. But the automobile industry arguably is.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
But unless we are converting to the Austrian model of state-owned nuclear plants that cost isn’t born by the USG; it is born by the investing utilities or independent generating companies. What those entities want from the feds is guarantees that there won’t be another round of retroactive regulation and retroactive changes to the financial environment as there was in the 1980 time period.
Well, McCain hasn’t specified one way or another. It’s difficult to believe that the mere removal of regulatory barriers is going to lead to fulfillment of his 45-by-2030 goal.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
CNN poll : 58% Obama, 33% McCain.
CBS poll: 53% Obama, 22% McCain
Can you say OUCH!
October 15th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
CBS undecideds poll:
Obama 53, McCain 22
28% choose now to vote for Obama, 14% now for McCain
October 15th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Obama wins CNN, favs up for O, down for M
October 15th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Congratulations, Joe: You’re rich! Rich I say! RIIIICH!!!!!!!
October 15th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
McCain actually has 14 plumbers.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Reality has a well-known liberal bias!
I love the snap polls, because they totally handicap the mediots’ ability to spin the debate. Look for them to be gone next cycle.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
what about Joe the Plumber? it’s all joe-appeal this year, everyone knows that. you must capture the joe vote.
Yeah, you’ve got Joe the Plumber, Joe Sixpack, and GI Joe. What does John get? Arrested for soliciting a prostitute.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
It doesn’t matter whether Palin’s kid has autism or Downs; it just matters that (1) she didn’t abort him, (2) one of her non-teenage-pregnant daughters can pet his hair on TV during the convention speech, and (3) McCain can trot him out as a prop to say, “I give a shit about special needs kids. Whose special needs, by the way, are completely budget-neutral!”
October 15th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Don’t forget Lipstick Joe…or something.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Seriously, though, speaking as someone with no real expertise at all (I worked my way through college doing IT support for a company in the nuclear power industry), there’s no way in hell we can throw a switch and build 40 nuclear power plants tomorrow. Forty! That’s damn near half the number of generating units we have running in the country today. Can’t happen–not unless you want a dozen Chernobyls. There’s a limited amount of expertise in this area, and, when it comes to nuclear power, the penalty for failure is harsh like you wouldn’t believe. You want to build _five_ new generating units…that I could believe.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
From McCain’s energy issues page:
- He will commit a $5,000 tax credit for each and every customer who buys a zero carbon emission car, encouraging automakers to be first on the market with these cars in order to capitalize on the consumer incentives.
- A $300 million prize should be awarded for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.
- John McCain Will Commit $2 Billion Annually To Advancing Clean Coal Technologies.
- John McCain Will Establish A Permanent Tax Credit Equal To 10 Percent Of Wages Spent On R&D.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
He means “depression/ptsd(rape) isn’t a real health problem,” “gestational diabetes and a predisposition for strokes aren’t potentially fatal,” and “women shouldn’t have the right to decide that potentially being permanently disabled by a dangerous pregnancy is not in the best interests of their families.”
October 15th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Did McCain call for 45 nuclear power plants to be built? I know he lost some votes with his unconditional support for that technology. I recognize that nuclear power has some advantages, but I think the ongoing difficulties cleaning up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and over where to place the stockpiles of nuclear waste show that we are not yet ready to build a bunch of new plants.
I also was quite shocked to hear him denigrate the health of pregnant women as some kind of tactic by extremist pro-abortion groups. I think we can all agree that we’d like to see fewer abortions performed. However, a woman does not lose her right to life simply by becoming pregnant.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Agreed, especially on “spreading the wealth” and the “health” exception. Those really painted him as extreme and out of touch. But I’d also add Obama’s mention of the “kill him” stuff. I think most middle of the road Republicans have to cringe at this fringe hatred. It was startling moment.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
We’ll get ourselves off foreign oil. We import 70% of our oil and some from nations that don’t like us.
Nuclear is the answer. We import 90% of our uranium and the largest supplier is Russia.
Sounds like a problem.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Yeah, I noticed the same three things. Weird – he definitely was not pandering to the undecideds. I also noted one other thing – Mccain twice referred to the “decision” that women must make to keep their unborn child. That word doesn’t really fit at all with his pro-choice argument. I was kind of hoping Obama would call him on it. I think Obama let a lot of things slide this debate.
October 15th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Obama: Here’s – here’s a way of thinking about it. Uh, how, how long you been a plumber?
Joe the Plumber: Uh, fifteen years.
Obama: Okay, so, over the last fifteen years, when you weren’t making [$]250,[000-a-year] you would have been getting a tax cut from me. So, you would actually have more money, which means you would have saved more, which means that you would have gotten to the point where you could build your small business quicker than under the current tax code. So, there are two ways of looking at it. I mean, one way of looking at it is, now that you’ve done more – become more successful –
Joe the Plumber: Through hard work.
Obama: Through hard work. You don’t want to be taxed as much.
Joe the Plumber: Exactly.
Obama: I – which I understand. But another way of looking at it is, 95 percent of folks who are making less than 250, they may be working hard too.
Joe the Plumber: Yeah.
Obama: But they’re being taxed at a higher rate than they would be under mine. So, what I’m doing is – put – project yourself back ten years ago when you were only making – whatever.
Joe the Plumber: Mm-hm.
Obama: Sixty or seventy. Under my tax plan, you would be keeping more of your paycheck, you’d be having lower taxes, which means that you would have saved and gotten to the point where you are faster. Now, look, nobody likes high taxes, right?
Joe the Plumber: No, not at all.
Obama: Of course not, but what’s happened is, is that we end up – we’ve cut taxes for folks like me who make a lot more than 250 –
Joe the Plumber: Mm-hm.
Obama: We haven’t given a break to folks who make less. And as a consequence, the average wage and income for just ordinary folks, the vast majority of Americans, has actually gone down over the last eight years. So, all I want to do is, I want to enact a tax cut. The only thing that changes is, I’m going to cut taxes a little bit more for the folks who are most in need, and the five percent of the folks who are doing very well – even though they’ve been working hard; I understand that and I appreciate that – I just want to make sure that they are paying a little bit more in order to pay for those other tax cuts. Now, I respect the disagreement. I just wanted you to be clear: It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make that everybody who is behind you, that they have a chance at success too.
Joe the Plumber: It seems like you’d be – it seems like you would be welcome to a flat tax then.
Obama: You know, I would be open to it, except for – here’s the problem with a flat tax. The, uh – is if you actually put a flat tax together –
Joe the Plumber: Yeah?
Obama: You’d probably – in order for it to work and replace all the revenue we’ve got, you’d probably end up having to making it, like, a 40 percent sales tax. I mean, that’s the value-added, making it up. Now, some people say 23 or 25 –
Joe the Plumber: Mm-hm.
Obama: But in truth, when you add up all the revenue that would need to be raised, you’d have to slap on a whole bunch of sales taxes on it. So, uh – and I do believe that, for folks like me, who are, uh – you know, have worked hard, but frankly, also have been lucky –
Joe the Plumber: Yeah.
Obama: I don’t mind paying just a little bit more than the waitress who I just met over there whose – things are slow and she can barely make it around. Because, my attitude is, if the economy is good for people from the bottom-up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole lot of customers who can afford to hire you. And right now, everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody, and, and I think we need to spread the wealth around. It’s good for everybody. But, uh, listen, I respect what you do and I respect your question.
Joe the Plumber: Mm-hm.
Obama: And you’re – uh, you know, even if I don’t get your vote –
Joe the Plumber: [Chuckles]
Obama: I’m still gonna be working hard on your behalf, ‘cause I want to make sure – small businesses are what create jobs in this country and I want to encourage it.
Joe the Plumber: Absolutely.
[They shake hands]
[People standing around applaud]
Obama: One other thing I didn’t mention. Uh, for small business people, I’m gonna eliminate the capital gains tax. So, what it means is, if your business, uh, succeeds, and, let’s say you, you know, take it from a $250,000 business to a $500,000 business –
Joe the Plumber: Yeah.
[Video ends]
October 16th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I love how McCain scoffs at Obama wanting to find a way to safely store nuclear waste.
The audacity for wanting to prevent a Chernobyl-style disaster! Shame on Senator Obama!
Nuclear plants are only in commission for about 50 years. After that, the land it sits on and its surrounding areas can’t be inhabited for hundreds of years. Look at Conneticut Yankee.
And there are going to be Yucca Mountain-type issues everywhere. I hope that McCain realizes nuclear technology runs contrary to his professed beliefs in state’s rights. Governors of states have no power to oppose the federal government’s use of their land to dispose of nuclear waste.
John McCain really has no idea about the beast of nuclear technology, and I hate that he’s going whole-hog on a technology he doesn’t quite seem to understand.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:12 am
McCain spoke derisively of the idea of “spreading the wealth”
He prefers to spread the wealthy. [/brainbleach]
October 16th, 2008 at 12:17 am
“Also McCain doesn’t know the difference between Down’s Syndrome and autism.”
From what I remember he mentioned that Sarah Palin has going to work on the issue of special needs children, and then he mentioned autism. I don’t think he implied that Trig has autism. Autism is a growing problem, unlike Down’s, so what he said made sense to me.
“McCain spoke derisively of the idea of “spreading the wealth”
It’s very odd when politicians are obviously reveling in the fact that they’re making their opponents offenders for a word. Guiliani in the Republican debates actually went meta with it and practically did a rhetorical end zone dance over the fact that Romney made some taboo comment about immigration.
In this case I have no idea how McCain thinks moralizing about “Wall Street greed” is awesome politics for him but Obama’s “spread the wealth around” is some devastating gaffe where the mask comes off and Obama’s is exposed as a socialist. It’s almost as if the McCain-Palin ticket has no principles at all, just a grab bag of rhetorical holds and contrived poses. After Bush the GOP still thinks that its libertarian brand is so pristine that it can tilt as far toward profligate and populist as possible and still sound credible while deriding redistributionist and egalitarian liberals.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Was it just me trying to make sense of McCain’s Palinesque English grammar, or did he say that they had nuclear power plants on submarines?
October 16th, 2008 at 12:32 am
“did he say that they had nuclear power plants on submarines”
He did, and they do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_submarine
October 16th, 2008 at 12:41 am
>>Did McCain really confuse Down Syndrome with autism? Like twice?
Hey, he’s old. He probably figures autism is the new PC term for…ahem…ummmm….well…mentally handicapped.
I’m scared of more nuke plants. Where we gonna store all the waste? Where are we going to get all the rad sponges to operate them? I don’t want a real life Homer Simpson running the nuke plant.
Joe the Plumber is my hero.
Pssst…hey John…I’m all for spreading the wealth around.
Seriously, if a plumber can make $250,000 a year, I’m in the wrong line of business. $250,000?!?! No, Joe the Plumber, I don’t feel bad if you have to pay another $10,000 in taxes. He must own his own plumbing business. Which means he’s a contractor these days. Not a plumber. And that means that real plumbers work for him. Maybe give them a raise or better benefits? I have no sympathy for Joe. Joe’s been successful, and now its time for him to give a little extra back. He’s still making a heckuva lot more than 95% of the country.
I want some of Joe the Plumbers wealth! He’s rich! Gimme sommadat!
I can’t wait for some 527 to destroy McCain for his statement on the health of pregnant women. What an a$$.
October 16th, 2008 at 12:53 am
You forgot women’s equal pay for equal work and those evil trial lawyers. ….. No wonder Cindy McCain looks like an abused wife! She probably is!
October 16th, 2008 at 2:43 am
You know, I wasn’t going to vote for McCain, but before tonight, I honestly did not think it would be a disaster of epic proportion or something if he does wins. Can’t be worse that Bush, right?
But after seeing that display of anger and contempt, I’m actually really scared. Do we need an angry president at this moment? This is the person deciding whether we would go to war or not? This is the person negotiating with foreign leaders? I can honestly imagine him losing his temper and strangling Putin or something.
The fact that he couldn’t even faked being less angry is also disturbing. People say Bill Clinton has his own anger problems, but at least he can control it in public.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:23 am
With that McCain spending freeze, are those 45 new nuke plants going to be built for free by Joe the Plumber?
October 16th, 2008 at 5:24 am
Correction on Clinton: At least he could control it in public while he was still the President.
October 16th, 2008 at 6:30 am
What he spoke derisively about was the idea of taking money from people who worked hard for it and giving it to those who didn’t.
Maybe if you understood the whole “working for a living” thing better you would sympathize.
October 16th, 2008 at 6:39 am
What he spoke derisively about was the idea of taking money from people who worked hard for it and giving it to those who didn’t.
Maybe if you understood the whole “working for a living” thing better you would sympathize.
God, I’m getting a flashback to Gingrich 94 revolution. What are the talking points again? Welfare queens in inner cities bilking millions from the government? Unemployment benefits for those fat-ass lazy people who never worked a day in their life? Wait, wait, let’s update a bit, it is 2008 after all: yes, what about those illegal immigrants getting free health care?
Wow, I guess McCain did know what he is doing when he used the term class warfare. Someone from the campaign should call Newt for consultation, he was after all the master at this.
October 16th, 2008 at 6:58 am
By the way, talking about “taking money from people who worked hard for it and giving it to those who didn’t”, the next president is probably going to be spending a lot of our tax money bailing out banks and other big corporations so that our economy doesn’t collapse. Granted, people who head these institutions probably also fall into the category of those who don’t work hard for their money, but I’m pretty sure they are not the people James Robertson was thinking about.
October 16th, 2008 at 7:44 am
FYI, I’m completely opposed to the bailout. I think the banks that did dumb things should have gone bankrupt, period.Perhaps then the bankers who needed a lesson would have learned one. The bi-partisan approach being taken is, once again, one of blame avoidance.
October 16th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Regarding spreading the wealth: WTF does McCain think is going on right now? Tax $’s are being pushed in the direction of the rich.
I think McCain was talking directly to that unfortunately large percentage of the population that is pissed off that any of their tax dollars go to poor people.
The end game for a Republican wet dream, where the poor are further isolated financially in our society, is more crime. Why in the world would a population that has even less chance of success behave themselves? The crime rate will soar of McCain wins and implements what he wants.
Pathetic.
October 16th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Hanford was a weapons facility, and therefore was nearly unregulated. No nuclear power plant gets run that way. The weapons industry still accounts for about 5 times as much radioactive waste as the power industry, though it tends to be more low-level waste.
Even so, 45 plants in 22 years is ridiculous.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:30 am
The preferred medical term is Down Syndrome, not Down’s Syndrome. Both are acceptable in common usage, of course, but if you’re going to mock someone for ignorance… One interesting point is that the leading edge of research suggests that Autism is genetic, and in the future, we may be able to take simple tests to screen for it, either in the parents or the fetus. They are most certainly drastically different disorders, but they may be converging on similar bioethical territroy.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:48 am
One other insightful moment from the debate seems to be getting swept under the rug in press coverage: John McCain’s response to the question asking why Sarah Palin would be a better President than Joe Biden.
He blew off the question. All he had to do was say “Sarah Palin would make a fine President.” That’s all. But even he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Think about that. How sad is that? Even John McCain himself doesn’t trust the judgment of ‘John McCain’ regarding his selection of the vice presidential candidate.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
With all due respect to McCain’s strangling skills, Putin would whip his ass.
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