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And McCain Fights!

By: John Brill (Diary)  |  October 16th, 2008 at 03:18 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Before the debate I was wondering, “Will McCain Fight?” and lo and behold he did. But while I was glad to finally see McCain knock Obama around like a red-headed stepchild, McCain could have made each attack more devastating. This is the difference of between a respectable 7 or 8 and a full 10.

McCain brought up ACORN, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and Ayers. McCain could have hit even harder by saying, “You’ve funded ACORN through the Woods Foundations, through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, through your own campaign, and you’ve given training seminars for them. Your relationship with ACORN is long and deep.”

To my surprise McCain hit Obama on NAFTA and CAFTA. He should have brought up that the language on Union Safety was pulled directly from another trade agreement. The language was already there.

One of the things that Obama hits McCain on is that people would lose Healthcare through their jobs. McCain needs to say “Many people are afraid of switching jobs because they’d lose their healthcare. With my plan they would be in charge of their healthcare and wouldn’t have to worry about losing it when they switch jobs.” That’s a powerful point and he could still make it in commercials.

He hit Obama on breaking campaign promises for federal funding and to debate McCain anywhere. I think he could have made the point that Obama lied about these things a little bit stronger. He could have wrapped it up with “You talk about meeting with the leaders of rogue countries without preconditions, but how do you expect to talk to the leaders of rogue countries when you’re afraid to talk to me?”

He hit Obama on Born Alive, but he could have hit harder. He should have brought up “The reason why it was an issue in your state was because a nurse found an infant in a storage closet left to die after a failed abortion. It survived for another 45 minutes after the woman found her. Obviously the laws in your state weren’t sufficient.”

To my surprise McCain did not say ‘Maverick’ or ‘my friends’. If he did I missed it. Also to my surprise he did not go on and on about bipartisanship.

One of the things I wanted McCain to say in the first debate was “you’re not running against Bush, you’re running against me.” He hit that one with “If you wanted to run against Bush you should have ran for president four years ago.” If McCain had only been saying that for even the past month he would have been doing better in the polls. It would be a good idea to put that into an ad to deflate the McSame argument in these last few weeks.

The moderator brought up things said in their ads against each other and asked if the candidates would say those things to each other’s faces. This was a perfect opportunity for McCain to say something to the effect of “You have lied, you do pal around with terrorists, you are dangerously naive, and I don’t think you’re ready to lead.”

McCain should have connected Obama to the financial mess by pointing out that through Obama’s entire career he has been aligned with the people who got us into this mess. ACORN who advocated the legislation that forced banks to issue sub-prime loans, as a lawyer who sued banks to make sure they issued sub-prime loans, and as a man on the take from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to look the other way while they played reckless games with our financial market.

McCain was much more fun and enjoyable to watch, a happy warrior. McCain is as often a pain in the behind, as he is a person to cheer for. Tonight he was overwhelmingly the latter. There were several times he looked at Obama as if he was thinking “You know, if we were in the middle of a jungle with not a soul around for hundreds of miles armed with only our wits and a knife, this would be a different story.” Not that he’d ever say that, because he’s a gentleman, but it’s nice to see that kind of fire there. A man incapable of being offended, incapable of that fire, does not have his priorities straight.

Obama does this thing where he tilts his head down and he smiles. It comes off as very girlish. I noticed it in the last debate and now I notice it every time he does it. Neither Hillary or Palin ever appear girlish and they’re women. There are so many other reasons not to vote for Obama that this shouldn’t even be considered as such, but it’s still there and it’s kinda weird. A presidential candidate shouldn’t appear girlish, because a president just shouldn’t appear girlish.

Obama did do a lot of defending. He changed the subject and retreated to safe territory many times. He also said McCain was right at least once or twice, and that footage should be turned into another ad.

All in all this was a much better debate, but McCain could have made it more devastating for Obama. I can’t help but wonder how much better McCain would be doing right now if he had started like this in the first debate, but better late then never. We still have three weeks to go and that’s a long time in politics.

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  • teegolfer

    [Just thought that I'd point that out. Would have shut him up pretty quickly, guys. - Moe Lane]

    John needs to explain his role in the Keating Five Scandal and how his wife Cindy made $14,500,000 on a Keating Five related real estate deal.

  • scotteiland

    You joined up just to mention a 23 year old yawner of a story that’s already been resolved? Ray gun, anyone?

  • JohnBrill

    …to equate all the many things Obama has yet to answer for with a scandal that McCain has been exonerated from?

  • mbecker908

    go to hell.

    That has been explained more times than is countable. Go troll elsewhere and quit wasting our time and our bandwidth.

    Punk.

  • mbecker908

    We’ll happily talk about Cindy’s RE investments if BO will address his RE investments. Hostile questioners only.

  • teegolfer

    Los Angeles
    October 7, 2008
    McCain’s ties to a convicted S&L owner
    The issue: Probably the biggest political embarrassment of John McCain’s career emanated from his close ties to Charles H. Keating Jr., the high-flying owner of Lincoln Savings & Loan who later went to federal prison.

    Lincoln’s failure would ultimately cost taxpayers $3.4 billion, the most expensive rescue of the S&L crisis in the late 1980s.
    Two years before Lincoln went under, McCain and four other senators, at Keating’s request, pressured bank regulators at two meetings to ease up their investigation of the thrift. A subsequent Senate Ethics Committee investigation of the meetings concluded that McCain had been guilty of only “poor judgment.” He did not do as much for Keating as other senators, the panel found.

    But of the five senators, McCain was closest to Keating, a Phoenix businessman. In addition to accepting more than $150,000 in campaign contributions from Keating and his associates, McCain and his wife had vacationed at Keating’s Bahamas retreat and repeatedly flown on his jet. (McCain subsequently repaid the cost of the travel.) Cindy McCain and her family were also investors with Keating in a shopping mall developed by one of Keating’s companies.

    And in the years preceding the meetings, McCain had fought against tougher regulation of the S&L banking sector, a key priority of Keating’s.
    Why the Obama campaign says it matters: McCain’s position against regulation on behalf of a political donor is relevant to assessing how he might handle the current financial crisis.

    Why the McCain campaign says it doesn’t: McCain subsequently said he regretted his behavior.

  • teegolfer

    Los Angeles
    October 7, 2008
    McCain’s ties to a convicted S&L owner
    The issue: Probably the biggest political embarrassment of John McCain’s career emanated from his close ties to Charles H. Keating Jr., the high-flying owner of Lincoln Savings & Loan who later went to federal prison.

    Lincoln’s failure would ultimately cost taxpayers $3.4 billion, the most expensive rescue of the S&L crisis in the late 1980s.
    Two years before Lincoln went under, McCain and four other senators, at Keating’s request, pressured bank regulators at two meetings to ease up their investigation of the thrift. A subsequent Senate Ethics Committee investigation of the meetings concluded that McCain had been guilty of only “poor judgment.” He did not do as much for Keating as other senators, the panel found.

    But of the five senators, McCain was closest to Keating, a Phoenix businessman. In addition to accepting more than $150,000 in campaign contributions from Keating and his associates, McCain and his wife had vacationed at Keating’s Bahamas retreat and repeatedly flown on his jet. (McCain subsequently repaid the cost of the travel.) Cindy McCain and her family were also investors with Keating in a shopping mall developed by one of Keating’s companies.

    And in the years preceding the meetings, McCain had fought against tougher regulation of the S&L banking sector, a key priority of Keating’s.
    Why the Obama campaign says it matters: McCain’s position against regulation on behalf of a political donor is relevant to assessing how he might handle the current financial crisis.

    Why the McCain campaign says it doesn’t: McCain subsequently said he regretted his behavior.

  • teegolfer

    Los Angeles
    October 7, 2008
    McCain’s ties to a convicted S&L owner
    The issue: Probably the biggest political embarrassment of John McCain’s career emanated from his close ties to Charles H. Keating Jr., the high-flying owner of Lincoln Savings & Loan who later went to federal prison.

    Lincoln’s failure would ultimately cost taxpayers $3.4 billion, the most expensive rescue of the S&L crisis in the late 1980s.
    Two years before Lincoln went under, McCain and four other senators, at Keating’s request, pressured bank regulators at two meetings to ease up their investigation of the thrift. A subsequent Senate Ethics Committee investigation of the meetings concluded that McCain had been guilty of only “poor judgment.” He did not do as much for Keating as other senators, the panel found.

    But of the five senators, McCain was closest to Keating, a Phoenix businessman. In addition to accepting more than $150,000 in campaign contributions from Keating and his associates, McCain and his wife had vacationed at Keating’s Bahamas retreat and repeatedly flown on his jet. (McCain subsequently repaid the cost of the travel.) Cindy McCain and her family were also investors with Keating in a shopping mall developed by one of Keating’s companies.

    And in the years preceding the meetings, McCain had fought against tougher regulation of the S&L banking sector, a key priority of Keating’s.
    Why the Obama campaign says it matters: McCain’s position against regulation on behalf of a political donor is relevant to assessing how he might handle the current financial crisis.

    Why the McCain campaign says it doesn’t: McCain subsequently said he regretted his behavior.

  • mbecker908

    The Senate Ethics committee cleared McCain, it was obvious he was tossed in so they would have a Republican to throw to the media.

    Plus, in the intervening years since K5 McCain has, if anything, over reacted to the “problem” with his signature legislation on campaign finance reform and he led the fight to regulate Fannie and Freddie during the Bush Administration.

    All this while YOUR boy take cash from overseas donors, tosses millions in earmarks to his wife’s employers (who just coincidentally figure out what a great lawyer she is and give her a couple of hundred grand raise), is in bed with Raines (arguably one of the most corrupt CEO’s ever) and ACORN.

    In any world with anything approaching a sense of justice BO would be named in a RICO prosecution with the criminal class that runs ACORN and end up in Federal prison being the butt-buddy punk of a group of big, tattooed guys.

    You really need to go elsewhere, we need to hose down the site after every one of your idiotic, nonsensical posts.

    hb

  • teegolfer

    I see you get all your fact from the Fox network? So sad!

  • janis

    talking points from Markos Moulitsas or Andrew Sullivan, or any other Obama-rant-o-matic. Run along,little man.

  • bs