McCain's Transplant Folly

Perhaps the worst moment for John McCain last night was this answer he gave when talking about his health care plan:

Now, 95 percent of the people in America will receive more money under my plan...except for those people who have the gold-plated Cadillac insurance policies that have to do with cosmetic surgery and transplants and all of those kinds of things.

Immediately when he said that, Michelle looked at me and asked "He thinks people should have to pay more for transplants?" She said it before I did, but I was thinking exactly the same thing. What kind of out-of-touch do you have to be to suggest that someone who needs a life-saving organ transplant should only have it covered under a "gold-plated Cadillac insurance policy" that would cost more than what 95% of Americans can afford?

Catching up on the reviews from this morning, I've seen some suggestions that he was talking about hair transplants, which makes sense because he joked in the last debate about needing those and he coupled the reference with cosmetic surgery.

But there are millions of people who have had a life-saving organ transplant or have a transplant recipient in their family (I have two relatives who have had kidney transplants, for instance). For those people, McCain's answer was jarring. I read a lot of commentary so I was able to get a better idea of what he was talking about, but I wonder how many others heard his answer the way I did and questioned what would have happened to them or their loved ones had McCain been in charge when they needed an organ transplant.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain health care

The steady Barack Obama and the lurching John McCain

If there has ever been a photo that so perfectly captured the difference between two campiagns, this one is it:



Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

McCain-Obama Round 3 Live Blog

Well, tonight's debate will either be one for the ages, or the most inconsequential debate ever. I'm hoping for the latter. Scott and I will be blogging live, starting at 9:00.

As usual, Scott is in blue, I am in red. And we're off...

9:01 -- I'm watching this on CNN, which is filled with a billion graphics. There are literally twice as many graphics on CNN's debate than there are when I play Call of Duty 4. That doesn't seem quite right to me. CNN has 6 pundits that will be adjusting little graphs depending on how they think the debate is going. So, in other words, they are live blogging too, only they are using color coded flash cards instead of all those pesky, confusing words. That pretty much sums up the difference between nodrumlins and CNN.

9:02 -- That and 4 million viewers. I'm on NBC, because they seem to show lots of split screens.

9:03 -- McCain could hardly even spit out Obama's name. Not off to a great start.

9:04 -- Fannie and Freddie! Drink!

9:05 -- McCain just got a +2 on Martin's dial. His half-elf must have equipped his Dagger of Ogre Slaying.

9:05 -- McCain's left hand/arm is shaking. For what that's worth.

9:06 -- On CNN, Obama's hair is really shiny. It looks kind of like field turf in HD, though.

9:07 -- Both of them are wearing their bracelets. Obama has been looking right at the camera. McCain apparently got the message, as he was looking right at Obama as he spoke.

9:08 -- McCain is flailing, and it's only 9:08. He's blinking like Joba Chamberlain in the bug game last year. It's probably all those lights in his face.

9:11 -- McCain certainly has a hard time attacking. He looks uncomfortable at it.

9:13 -- Isn't Joe the Plumber one of the guys Astrid brought to Game Night? <--- nodrumlins inside joke.

9:15 -- Does Obama seem a little defensive or off his game? I'm not sure what it is...maybe I'm just paranoid.

9:16 -- The "uncommitted voters of Ohio", who also have their own graph, seemed to really like what Obama just said; their lines almost went right off the top of the chart and pierced Martin's color coded debate bubble. That would have been cool. Now the Men are almost going off the top of the chart as McCain talks, but the women are down in the middle. Damn men, am I right, ladies?

9:18 -- Eliminating a tariff won't be a program cut. It will be another tax cut. McCain seems very angry. He seemed mad that Bob Scheiffer kept on him.

9:21 -- The "I'm not President Bush" line was a good one. Obviously rehearsed, but still a good one.

9:21 -- I think Martin might have passed out on his joystick; he's got McCain at +10 and -5 and Obama at +15 and -4, for an Obama lead of 11 to 5. Meanwhile, someone named Gergen, has them tied at 1 each. Both McCain and Obama, though, are beating the Red Sox by 8.

9:24 -- I hope Obama brings up the Keating 5. DO IT! Go for the juglar! Knives out!

9:25 -- He won't.

9:26 -- McCain won't look him in the eye and say it to his face. Bringing up John Lewis is putting it on a tee. He shouldn't go there.

9:27 -- I have no idea what McCain is talking about, with this Palin killing children thing. I'm not sure it's a good idea to introduce this idea to a viewing public that hasn't heard of it, especially coming from McCain's mouth.

9:29 -- Obama hasn't been doing as well with the undecided people of Ohio since it moved away from the economy. But, you know what? Screw Ohio. I'm so over Ohio it's ridiculous. They can float that vast wasteland into the ocean and sink it for all I care.

9:30 -- Thank you Oil Can Boyd.

9:31 -- Here's a new bailout idea -- we'll trade Ohio straight up for Iceland.

9:33 -- Obama could have been better on this. He seems to be goading McCain into talking about Ayers. I wonder why.

9:34 -- There goes McCain looking into the crowd again for support.

9:39 -- This part is going on too long for Obama, though I thought he did a good job of calmly dismissing all of it. I am a bit biased here, but frankly, I think McCain is flat out lying. I can tell because his pants are, in fact, on fire.

9:40 -- What did the dials think?

9:41 -- The current scores... let's see, need to do some math... carry the one... Begala has Obama up 8-5. Bennett has them tied 3-3. Castellanos has McCain ahead 16-15. Bergen has Obama ahead 2-1. King has them tied 8-8. And Martin has Obama ahead 28-3. The commissioner from Reno has Sugar Ray ahead 110-108.

9:43 -- Michelle: Sarah Palin "sure is not a role model for me...Give me a [expletive] break."

9:44 -- I'm not sure that's true; Michelle told me the other day she wants to name the baby Fenway Banknorth.

9:46 -- I wish Obama had taken the bait and talked about McCain as "erratic" by pointing out that he has had about five different economic positions in the last two weeks.

9:48 -- McCain thinks we can reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil in the next four years by building 45 nuclear plants? Is he nuts?

9:48 -- Castellanos just gave McCain +1 point and -1 point at the same time. The role of Castellanos tonight is being played by Harvey Dent.

9:51 -- McCain just called himself a traitor! "I am a free traitor"! Wow, there's the moment. Game over.

9:52 -- ...oh, wait. Nevermind.

9:52 -- I don't think McCain does himself any favors when he is sarcastic.

9:54 -- These guys can debate trade treaties with Peru and Columbia every day for the next three weeks, as far as I'm concerned. That discussion won't move one voter.

9:55 -- Obama said "midwestern" and Ohio voters went off the charts. Good, they recognize when someone is talking about them. Someone give them a treat. Next debate we're going to work on recognzing shapes and colors. So they can understand the CNN coverage.

9:57 -- How did the Toledo reference go over?

9:58 -- I wonder if the Bruins won.

9:59 -- They are behind 3-2 late in the third.

9:59 -- They're behind 3-2. That's one of the graphics on CNN.

10:00 -- And we're back to Joe the Plumber. Look, the only plumbers I want to hear about are named Mario and Luigi.

10:00 -- Was Joe the plumber the guy in that Kevin Costner movie where there is only one undecided voter in a tied race, or something like that?

10:03 -- F*** JOE ALREADY!

10:04 -- McCain just told Joe that's he's rich. You know that guy is going to try to collect on that promise.

10:05 -- He also just suggested transplants and cosmetic surgery were in the same class of medical procedure. Tell that to Ron the not plumber, you mean old bastard!

10:06 -- Well, for McCain it's in the same category. His first wife had to have cosmetic surgery, so he got a spouse transplant.

10:08 -- Back to George Bush's "Elections have consequences" clap trap.

10:09 -- Isn't that the Levitra slogan? Or, wait, that's something slightly different.

10:12 -- Mmmmm. Melba snacks.

10:14 -- Dodgers are rolling over. Weirdly, I'm pretty sure I saw Varitek and Ortiz in their lineup tonight.

10:16 -- How do the dials look? McCain seems to have been slipping as the night goes on.

10:17 -- About the same, mostly. Scores right now are Obama 13-4, McCain 8-4, McCain 28-24, Obama 3-1, McCain 15-13 and Obama 38-22. In other words, three of the pundits are Republicans and three are Democrats. Pretty useless.

10:20 -- Did McCain just propose a program where soldiers can become teachers when they leave the armed forces without taking certification exams? I honor the troops as much as anyone else, but I don't think they ought to be teaching without training. That's a ridiculous proposal.

10:22 -- Dad: So if they don't know math, they're going to teach them how to become a dragon gunner?

10:23 -- Watching this on CNN is maddening. I feel like I am steering a Submarine.

10:26 -- Bruins forced a shootout. Salvaging one point is a pretty good result.

10:28 -- McCain doesn't sound like he practiced his closing. Not a strong finish at all.

10:28 -- McCain has some serious choppers. When he goes into that sarcastic grin and laugh, he bears an eerie resemblance to Todd McFarlane's Violator.

10:29 -- Someone violated Todd McFarlane? How tragic. I hope he reported that to the authorities.

10:30 -- McCain just did a great Tim Conway impression when he stood up. Hilarious.

10:33 -- Probably a draw. I thought McCain was harsh, but that's the way he is. Obama seemed a little too reserved. I thought he missed a couple of opportunities to hit McCain, but he's most likely just trying to run out the clock.

10:36 -- The pundits seem to be calling it a split. They seem to agree that McCain was very good early but that he slipped midway through, allowing Obama to catch up. Anyway, I'm done. Later, internets.


Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

Presidential Debate #2 -- Live Blog!

Tonight! Nashville! Live! Blog!

As usual, Scott will be blogging in blue, my commentary will be in red, and John McCain will be an old curmudgeon.

8:58--I'm scrolling through the channels heading for NBC and it strikes me that it doesn't much matter how desperate the economy is, as long as we're spending all of our free time watching Dancing with the Stars and The Biggest Loser, aren't we screwed anyway?

9:02 -- Speaking of which, Misty May Treanor blew out her achilles on Dancing With the Stars. Don't the Patriots get a supplemental pick for that?

9:00--And the idea that anything good is going to come out of a debate where the questions come from people who don't yet have an opinion on the candidates is ludicrous. What have these folks been doing for the last 16 months?

9:02--Oh Good, Tom Brokaw just gave me permission to cheer or boo.

9:03 -- Isn't that Rod Steiger?

9:06--I think I'd be really uncomfortable if I were the guy in the front row when McCain (or Obama) is essentially standing in my lap.

9:06 -- By the way, I am watching tonight on ABC, where they will be later interviewing a group of college students. First question: which member of High School Musical is hottest?

9:07--Did McCain just propose to directly buy back bad mortgages? Wasn't he against that last week?

9:08 -- By the way, Mom just announced that she would be more comfortable voting for Tina Fey than for Sarah Palin. Which... yeah, me too, actually.

9:09 -- You've been doing God's work there.

9:10 -- Warren Buffett is not going to be anyone's treasury secretary. What a stupid question!

9:10 -- I think he meant "Jimmy Buffet".

9:11 -- During Obama's last discussion of middle class tax relief, Mom said "That's fine for the middle class, but what about the lower class?" WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!

9:11 -- Where did they find an undecided black voter?

9:14 -- Where the hell did John McCain just walk off to? Hey old man, your chair is the other way.

9:14 -- He was illustrating the hike that some people took when Freddie and Fannie were going under. Which I think took place in "Archie's Pal Jughead" #107.

9:17 -- Hey, that was Cindy McCain and Lindsay Graham in the back row. Now, if they are undecided voters, McCain is in worse shape than I thought.

9:17 -- Uh oh. Obama just mentioned other countries. That will lose 50,000 votes.

9:18 -- They're continuing over in Section F. Nice, that's where I parked.

9:18 -- That woman has huge baubles.

9:19 -- Yes. Start making the comparison between 2000 and 2008. Don't forget to point out that the Dow is lower now than it was then.

9:20 -- I'm actually kind of torn, here. The Bush Administration has been very good for the Boston Red Sox. Do we really want to risk changing the mojo now? Do we want to go back to the days of Jose Offerman?

9:22 -- I liked the sidelong look that lady in the front row gave McCain as he sidled up the rail. You know she was thinking, "one more step, buster, and I'm going to sock you, you creep".

9:23 -- Tom Brokaw used the entire one minute discussion time to ask his question. Clamp it you old windbag!

9:24 -- Was McCain doing an acrostic on that pad? You know there's something wrong with the question when the candidates have to take notes during it.

9:26 -- $3.80 for a gallon of gas in Nashville? Reason #246 not to live in Nashville.

9:27 -- There's a .43 tax that goes to help subsidize Vince Young's therapy bills.

9:28 -- Oh sure, a 78-year-old asking a question via the internet...at least one septuagenarian in tonight's debate knows how to use e-mail.

9:29 -- To be fair, though, her actual question was "what does this button do?"

9:30 -- "Of course we can attack both problems at once. We're Americans! What does he think this is, Kenya or something?"

9:30 -- McCain: "We're not rifle shots here, we're Americans." What? Huh?

9:31 -- Obama is rambling. He doesn't seem particularly comfortable. Actually, he looks more comfortable when he's listening to McCain that he looks when it's his turn to speak.

9:33 -- Brokaw's follow-up question was 33 second long!

9:34 -- Obama does seem a bit distracted. He's probably worried about missing Dancing with the Stars and Biggest Loser.

9:36 -- Look at that doughboy in the front row. I hope he gets to ask a question.

9:36 -- And McCain makes a Herbert Hoover reference. He just locked up Edith Bunker's vote.

9:38 -- McCain's entire answer on taxes was a lie. Glad to see Obama come back to it.

9:40 -- I know the crowd has been coached not to mess up the debate, but they look comatose. The robots in the Hall of Presidents are more animated than this crowd.

9:41 -- Michelle: "Did McCain just say that reforming Social Security is not that hard?" Me: "Yes."

9:43 -- Is Joe Lieberman his running mate or something? McCain brings him up in every other answer.

9:43 -- Mrs. Obama sitting behind the questioner. I wonder if she's been tempted to slip someone a question.

9:44 -- "Senator Obama says nuclear power needs to be safe or somthing like that..." Silly Obama. Nothing says safe like nuclear power. Just ask the Russians.

9:45 -- McCain looks like he's at summer camp writing to his penpal. He seems really pleased with what he's jotting down.

9:45 -- He's writing with a Shaaaaaah-pee!

9:48 -- Form a Manhattan Project to develop energy? Do we still have that many Nazi scientists?

9:48 -- Tom Brokaw just asked if we should build 100,000 garages across the country. Now that's a man in touch with the issues of the day.

9:50 -- The camera panned back so they could get McCain in the shot, right as he was giving a "choke a bitch" gesture with his hand to someone in the crowd. Nice.

9:50 -- McCain just waked across across the stage to get an answer from Lindsay Graham in the back of the hall! The guy can't even rely on his own notes, he needs help from his lackey in the crowd!

9:54 -- That's seriously crossing some state lines. So if I'm in Tennessee and I want to see a more qualified doctor, I just hop in my car and go to Arizona? Man, I hope I don't need a prescription.

9:54 -- Dude, no one is going to travel from Tennessee to Arizona to see their doctor. Georgia, maybe.

9:55 -- Michelle: He shouldn't try to tell jokes. He's terrible at it.

9:56 -- Interesting that McCain is giving Obama a hard time about "mandating" coverage when Hillary Clinton was criticizing him for NOT mandating coverage when they were debating during the primary.

9:59 -- Obama had a fantastic answer about health care, but he probably shouldn't be using Delaware as an example of what's wrong with the banking industry, seeing as his running mate has been called the "Senator from MBNA."

10:04 -- Obama seems to be hitting his stride. He's had a very good last 10 minutes. And now Brokaw is breaking the momentum with an interminable question.

10:04 -- MST3K crowd shot: pasty... pasty... pasty... beefy... pasty...

10:05 -- Yeah, if Gallup did one thing right with this representative sample, they accurately portrayed the relative heft of the American people.

10:07 -- McCain: "...and during the Boxer Rebellion, I stood up to my idol McKinley and warned against American intervention".

10:09 -- Section F is the clear winner tonight. Everyone gets a two-liter of Pepsi.

10:09 -- If McCain mentions Lieberman again, Section F gets free fries from Wendy's.

10:10 -- Is the debate being held on the old Let's Make a Deal set? Are they going to wheel out a mystery box any time soon?

10:11 -- Wait, I thought Reagan was his hero?

10:14 -- There's nothing worse than being green behind the ears.

10:15 -- "I know how to get him. I know how to get bin Laden." Then why don't you tell us? Why should we have to wait for you to be president? If you know how to get him, shouldn't you, you know, share that information?

10:17 -- That almost smacks of Reagan and the Iranian hostage crisis. As soon as he gets elected, they magically get released. Is McCain suggesting that if we want bin Laden to be caught, we just need to elect him, and the next day Pakistan will mysteriously present him in chains?

10:18 -- That's "McCain hero Reagan" to you.

10:20 -- I hate the term "petro dollars." Sounds like a Exxon credit card rewards program. Earn enough petro dollars and get a free car wash in Moscow.

10:20 -- Am I going to have to rent Eastern Promises to understand this section of the debate? Help me, Aragorn!

10:22 -- What's up with the goober in the trucker hat in the back of the section? Hey bud, if you're going to a forum with the next president of the United States wash your friggin' hair and make yourself presentable.

10:24 -- Stop yelling at Joe Sixpack, dude.

10:26 -- John McCain keeps bringing up this "League of Democracies." Where I come from, we call that NATO. I don't think we need another one.

10:26 -- I'm getting pretty psyched. It's almost time to hear from the ABC student council. This is going to be so entertaining and informative!

10:28 -- Yeah, I don't like this League of Democracies crap either. The last thing I want is for American actions to be vetoed by Aquaman.

10:31 -- I really think Obama would have been better served by answering the "What don't you know" question directly. That one shouldn't be that hard.

10:32 -- I think McCain is bonking this one worse, though. "I don't know what's going to happen" isn't really reassuring from the President.

10:33 -- Maybe. But you can go from that to "I may not know what's going to happen" to "I know how to
deal with the unexpected." (Not that McCain did).

10:34 -- Me: Did he just say "comrade"? Dad: He was indoctrinated when he was in prison.

10:37 -- Apparently Kodak sponsored tonight's debate...looks like every one of the audience has identical disposable cameras.

Well, I thought McCain won. Not by much, just a little. I don't think it changed much, though. Obama will still be up 5-7 points at the end of the week.

I thought Obama edged it out. McCain just seemed to be making stuff up towards the end. But what really matters is what the student focus group thought.

I'm not even watching ABC, but I can tell you what they thought. You'll have a couple of 20-year-old guys with wire-rim glasses and no hope of having a girlfriend saying that McCain won and that Obama is a Muslim terrorist. A couple of young ladies will be concerned about Darfur and global warming, and generally wringing their hands. And a couple of others who think Obama is going to save the world.

The students, by the way, are being wrangled by Charlie Gibson, who seems to be on the brink of doddering. I'm pretty sure I saw at least one dodder from him. First student interviewed: Brittany Fiffick, who is still undecided. Seriously? Still undecided? Here's an idea: let's change the voting age to 30. The general consensus from the undecideds is that they are now leaning slightly towards Obama. But you know what? Who care what any of these knobs have to say.

And with that, I think I'm done. Peace out, internets!

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

McCain's Ancient History

One last point on Friday's debate that I forgot to mention in yesterday's post...

McCain consistently referred to historical events--both as an example of success and as an example of failure--in framing his answers to a number of policy questions. While I appreciate a good discussion of history, I wonder if his points resonated at all with large segments of the public. Here were three that stood out while I was watching:

I won't repeat the mistake that I regret enormously, and that is, after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters and drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region.

Back in 1983, when I was a brand-new United States congressman, the one -- the person I admired the most and still admire the most, Ronald Reagan, wanted to send Marines into Lebanon. And I saw that, and I saw the situation, and I stood up, and I voted against that...

The point is that throughout history, whether it be Ronald Reagan, who wouldn't sit down with Brezhnev, Andropov or Chernenko until Gorbachev was ready with glasnost and perestroika. Or whether it be Nixon's trip to China, which was preceded by Henry Kissinger, many times before he went.

The problem is that to many of the viewers, the events McCain referenced might as well be ancient history. Someone who was voting age in 1980 when the Afghan-Soviet conflict was at it's height would now be at least 46 years old today. Someone of voting age in 1983 when Lebanon and the Soviet dictators listed would be at least 43. A listener who might have been making political decisions in 1973 when Nixon was visiting China would now be at least 53.

How many voters are going to hear those examples and think "Yeah, I remember what that time was like."? Some will, but McCain probably already has many of them. Unless a voter of my generation was paying unusually close attention for a 12-year old or studied this stuff in college, these examples are meaningless. For most people under 35 or so, most of what they know of these events would be based on the commentary of Rich Eisen or Mo Rocca on I love the 80s.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

"The average South Korean is three inches taller" and other thoughts on Friday's debate

I wasn’t able to see all of Friday’s presidential debate live, and the 40 minutes I did see of it on Friday was with the sound off and the closed-captioning on (I was at a birthday party at a sports bar…the idea was to watch the Red Sox beat the Yankees. Once the game got to 13-4 in favor of New York, a few of us were able to turn a couple of TVs over to the debate.). So for the legion of loyal readers who were hoping for an in-depth live blog…sorry to disappoint.

But I did watch it again over the weekend and a handful of things stood out to me.

• The quote in the title is a perfect example of what happens when a candidate tries to take a point that has a complex explanation and uses it as a talking point: it becomes complete gibberish. Here is the entire portion of McCain’s answer dealing with North Korea:
  
  

  As far as North Korea is concerned, our secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went to North Korea. By the way, North Korea, most repressive and brutal regime probably on Earth. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag.
  
  We don't know what the status of the dear leader's health is today, but we know this, that the North Koreans have broken every agreement that they've entered into.

  When I first saw this response (on closed caption) I laughed out loud. Let’s forget for the moment the way the sentence in bold reads--it appears that John McCain is calling a tall South Korean individual a huge gulag (which suggests that the three-inch shorter North Korean person is a slightly shorter gulag). It’s funny because it kind of sits out there as a ludicrous, ridiculous piece of trivia.
  
  But thinking about it a little more, the fact that North and South Koreans have different growing patterns is probably strong anthropological evidence that North Korean society trails pretty significantly. The point McCain was probably trying to make is that the North Korean people are malnourished, do not have access to modern health care and a whole host of other factors that cause North Koreans to fail to thrive, all of which are the fault of Kim Jong Il and his father before him.
  
  I’m giving McCain the benefit of the doubt that he knows the rationale behind why the size of Koreans is proof that North Korea is a “repressive and brutal regime.” But the problem is that in a debate format, a candidate rarely has the opportunity to expound on these little nuggets. So unless the person watching the debate takes the additional step in his or her mind to walk through the reasons why a dangling piece of information matters, he or she probably hears that and wonders “What the hell does the height of a Korean have to do with negotiating with a foreign leader.”
  


• There has been quite a bit made in debate reviews of the fact that McCain would not look at Barack Obama when he was speaking about Obama, or when Obama was speaking him. I think that was probably more evident in the hall than it was on TV. We rarely got to see the two of them except on split screen and in that view it’s hard to tell where the candidate is looking. What the split screen did show was the little flashes of anger that hit McCain when Obama would attack him. He had that reflexive forced grin that says “you’re not bothering me! You’re not bothering me!” that makes it clear that he was quite bothered.
  
  The candidates seemed to deal with each other’s attacks in a very different manner. McCain hardly responded at all when Obama attacked him. While he sometimes had a hard time masking his facial expressions, he rarely attempted to counter Obama’s claims. I don’t know if he was purposely trying to ignore him, if he thought that parrying the claims would make him sound defensive, or if he had some other strategy, but I thought it had the effect of leaving Obama’s points out there unchallenged.
  
  On the other hand, Obama made it a point to respond briefly to nearly every attack. The risk in that is that he could have come off sounding defensive. Most of the time I thought Obama was successful in reframing the attacks and was able to do so without being defensive.
  


• Finally, I thought the debate played differently via closed-caption than it did with sound. Reading the answers at the bottom of the screen for the last 40 minutes and only seeing the candidates (but not hearing them), I would have scored McCain as the victor. There didn’t seem to me to be a whole lot that was different from what the candidates have been saying all along; I figured that the status quo on the foreign policy front was probably a McCain win.
  
  But when I rewatched it and heard their voices and their inflections and the points they found important enough to emphasize, I changed my opinion. McCain seemed just a little angry, a little rigid, and a little peeved. Obama seemed more cool and thoughtful…not aloof like John Kerry, but rational and controlled. Even if Obama didn’t win, he at least tied, which is all he needs to do right now.

Tags: Election 2008 Barack Obama Debate John McCain

Doddering old man

I'm watching the Republican Debate (not live-blogging it) and John McCain is coming across as a rambling doddering old man. The worst thing that happened to him tonight was the decision not to have a time limit on answers. The sun literally set during his rambling, stream-of-consciousness answer on California's energy plan.

Romney is running circles around him. Just when I think I've got a handle on this race, something new happens. Romney's victory in this debate (if it turns out that way over the last hour and a quarter) probably won't be enough to make up for Rudy Giuliani's endorsement of McCain. But man, is McCain just killing himself tonight.

Tags: Election 2008 Republican Primary Mitt Romney John McCain Debate