Oct 15 2008
Pre-Debate Live Blogging
Update: Bottom line – I’m Joe The Plumber! The tag line from tonight – end update
To save myself time I am going to live blog the debate now and get it over with:
McCain wins most rounds, nation differs with me when polled.
OK, now that I have taken care of that I will be blogging only if something big happens – and I mean huge. Otherwise this is an open thread for you all to share your thoughts.
One thing I will be watching is Obama’s composure. Given all this noise about API having Michelle raging into the phone on a supposed recording, if it is true Obama may go into the debate rattled and off message. If he is composed I would take it as a sign there is ‘no there’ there.
9: 16 PM Eastern: Obama makes first unforced error. He claimed he would go after insurance subsidies meant to support seniors. Every senior just sat up in a cold sweat. Â You don’t touch seniors’ medical benefits.
9:36 PM Eastern: Second Obama error – laughing when McCain said Obama needs to answer about ACORN. Â He’s laughing at voter fraud and corruption. Second mistake, answering Ayers question when we all know he was well over 30 when he worked with him.
9:38 PM Eastern: Third mistake, admitting his ties to ACORN. Obama paid for ACORN.
9:42 PM Eastern: Scheiffer is asking really tough questions. Â I really liked the question “why is your VP candidate better than the opposition’s. Â Obama has shuffled off is his teleprompter again!
9:56 PM Eastern: The Obidiot showed up tonight – how did he go from Columbia, to Venezuela to Peru, to assassinated labor leaders, to car dealerships, car loans, retooled plants in the heartland, to solar panels – on free trade? Â The man is babbling!!!!! OMG – he missed Kevin Bacon, you lose!
10:30 PM Eastern: Summary, Obama babbled, McCain had some good hits, the polls will disagree with me. Have a great evening!
Last chance for McCain to break the Fannie & Freddie can of worms wide open. He needs Fannie & Freddie to strafe the Obama campaign from tonight thru to Election Day, and to start sending the Dems scurrying for cover like the rats out for their own skin that they are.
Back in the 50s to the late 70s, whenever important footage was televised people would stick televisions in front windows with a speaker outside the door and play it for passersby who would gather to watch and listen.
Ever since computers made our society so micro-cosmically insular, people don’t share information openly anymore, only subversively amongst themselves around water coolers with like-minded people, or on blogs with like-minded people, etc., where open dialogues are relegated to sniping comments with little to no substance.
The following clips have been playing on YouTube now for two weeks and have yet to really break out into the mainstream. The fact that so little of this is being covered in the MSM with all the coverage of the economic crisis is simply appalling and clearly biased. Nothing shows Obama’s culpability in the current economic crisis more clearly and concisely than what these two videos show.
These two clips need to get off the internet and onto Wal-mart TV walls, TVs at local bars, any place that the public gathers around a screen. They need to be copied onto DVDs by the millions and handed out free for shops and bars to play on their in-house TVs.
Democrats in their own words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
Burning Down The House
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4
Hot Air has a couple of new ads not from the campaign that really drive this message home, which is something McCain really needs to do tonight. This is what will shatter the dreamy idolatry of Obama’s supporters and the MSM tonight, not Ayers.
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/15/surprise-negative-ad-that-hits-obama-on-fannie-and-freddie-proves-highly-effective/
C’mon John McCain, time for the KO! You took it to the people at recent rallies. Now take it to Obama and get in his face with it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiPwbX6_6AA
Agree with Fanny above. This is the issue that hits home with the voters because it is related to the economy. The dems have been blaming 8 years of GWB for our present economy so if McCain can show that the current economic downturn was caused by Obama and the Democrats he will cause a big hit to Obama.
If America will trust McCain on the economy more than Obama he will win. They should hammer the Dems on Fannie/Freddie until election day. Ayers hits a little bit because he is a socialist and has a job as a professor. Wright is seen as a fringe kook pastor. It is a shame that in today’s society the professor is seen as so much more influential than the pastor.
McCain has said publicly that he will kick Obama’s ass in this debate. Go for it, John.
You are proposing to take money from Joe the Plumber, give it to Senator Obama, and have him spread it around. Nicely done.
2nd highest business tax rate in the world. Yes.
Barack doesn’t mind paying a little more. Go ahead. Nothing is stopping you…
He’s on the attack with energy and jobs. Confident. Obama’s on the defensive. Senator Obama, I’m not President Bush. If you wanted to run against Bush you should’ve run 4 years ago. Even the silent audience chuckled.
Senator Obama, your argument for standing up against the leadership of your party is not convincing.
Nice flag pin, Senator. It’s noticeable due to its intentional absence previously.
Starting to see a little fire in the belly. Stammering, stuttering by Obama. I think he’s filibustering to kill the clock at this point.
He’s trying to laugh off ACORN. McCain is on point…
You may have seen this in the WSJ today. It’s worth reprinting.
Voting for Obama anyway
I just got an astounding e-mail from a Republican consultant I know well. He’s a guy who’s always thought Obama had a “glass jaw,” and was always among those agitating for hitting Obama harder.
Recently, he conducted a focus group in an upper-Midwestern state, showing them the kind of ad he thought would work: A no-holds-barred attack, cut for an independent group, which hasn’t aired.
I’m just going to reprint his amazed e-mail about the focus group:Reagan Dems and Independents. Call them blue-collar plus. Slightly more Target than Walmart.
Yes, the spot worked. Yes, they believed the charges against Obama. Yes, they actually think he’s too liberal, consorts with bad people and WON’T BE A GOOD PRESIDENT…but they STILL don’t give a f***. They said right out, “He won’t do anything better than McCain” but they’re STILL voting for Obama.
The two most unreal moments of my professional life of watching focus groups:
54 year-old white male, voted Kerry ’04, Bush ’00, Dole ’96, hunter, NASCAR fan…hard for Obama said: “I’m gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He’s gonna be a bad president. But I won’t ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President.”
The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. “Well, I don’t know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I’m sick of paying for health insurance at work and that’s why I’m supporting Barack.”
I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I sat on the other side of the glass and realized…this really is the Apocalypse. The Seventh Seal is broken and its time for eight years of pure, delicious crazy….
“Thank god for the smart people, but some of you should have been swallowed at birth.” Carlos Mencia quote repeated by SJStrata during the Obama free trade ramble. I fell off the couch.
Obama’s lecturing Bob. McCain is lecturing the young Senator.
He’s now associated Obama with Watergate; and now Obama with Herbert Hoover. Not bad.
No litmus test, nominate based on qualifications for the job of judge. Bob, that means yes, if they are qualified to be a supreme court judge then yes i will nominate them if they back Roe v. Wade
Senator Obama wants government to do the job. Joe, I want you to do the job.
Obama lied about the facts of the Lili Ledbetter case.
She supports vouchers too!
Who wants to invite babblebama to their house?
Folks,
You have to understand DJStrata is sitting 3 feet in front of me in the downstairs home theatre with LJStrata and SJStrata (our newly minted Marine recruit).
Too funny.
I thought the big one was Obama laughing at the idea that ACORN’s fraud should be taken seriously.
Perhaps it’s because he spent his elementary school years in Indonesia, or perhaps its too many years associating with radicals, but Obama seems just not to get it. The vote is a sacred thing.
He is really, really, really going to regret not having made a strong statement about how important an untainted election is.
Huge unforced error.
Anyone who thinks Obama won that debate is on a different planet. He babbled, stuck to talking points, and didn’t answer questions. Yep thats what we need as a President.
AJ yell “eyeballs” at SJ and see if the boot replies “Snap Sir” and whips his head around to find you. If it works tell him I said Semper Fi, if it doesn’t short sheet his rack, and tell him Semper Fi any way.
McCain was able to bring up a lot of uncomfortable subjects for Obama tonight, like Ayres, ACORN, Rep.Lewis’ ugly comments, Columbia free trade, Obama’s support of late term abortions, and of course Joe the plumber! Overall, McCain did well enough – some good punches were thrown but no knock outs.
Will this sway the independents and moderates?? Who knows – however, if I was an independent really wanting a change in Washington DC, it is clear that McCain would be the one to deliver true change and reform.
One other thing to consider. If Obama is elected and has a Democrat congress to work with, how many of those sensible sounding proposals (e.g. tax cuts for the middle class) do you think will actually be implemented? Do you think Congress will sit idly by while there are taxes to increase? Remember Clinton’s retroactive tax increase from 1993?
McCain did not close the deal on Ayers/Acorn. He should have been able to explain this issue to the millions of viewers that do not know the details. He made it seem unimportant.
Obama made a point on health insurance that many of those viewers understood. Did you hear him give the example of the mid-50’s worker that lost their insurance. This is one of the ‘holes’ in the system that many understand. He nailed it. The system has holes that Pugs refuse to even discuss. Mistake.
Think I have figured out what I am seeing that seems ‘off’. McCain seems to think we can read between the lines when he is talking. Obama carefully explains. See it over and over.
McCain slugged him one one thing. He mocked his Words. Too funny on that one!