evsoul

iTrader: (1)

How do you guys feel about it?

I feel like McCain was kinda running the debate.. he kept nailing Obama in ways that Obama could not come back at..

ie: Experience. He made a lot of points on Obama about how Obama's idea for pushing Afghanistan and Pakistan (or Pokistan for how Obama pronounces it )
just would not work and McCain made it very clear that Obama would know these things would not work if he had the experience John McCain had.


Over all I am pretty undecided but I am slightly leaning to McCain. I truly do not think he will be another George W, and to me that is very important. But I also know Obama certainly would not either.

I just do not care for Palin very much, I wish he would have found a woman VP that had more experience and didn't incorporate religion so much. And that is coming from a Christian. I think religion needs to be a part of her personal life and not her politics since she will be representing the entire country which is very diverse in religion and beliefs.

Having someone as strong in her faith (not that its a bad thing) but having someone that is very religion-agenda minded like her I feel like it won't be fair to other people that aren't Christians. Sure to me it probably wouldn't negatively affect me but I still believe in a separation of church and state because I would not want an Indian president pushing for example Hinduism. Or a Mormon president pushing Mormonism. Or a Chinese (millions of others not just Chinese can fall into this) to push Buddhism or Daoism

You got my point, who is to say who is right or wrong, kinda like who is to say because the president is Christian and does not believe in Gay Marriage that it should affect the people who do not believe in that.

Kind of off track, sorry. But my point is I am liking McCain more and more but still have that nasty taste of Palin in my mouth (no pun intended... or maybe there is )

ryball

iTrader: (6)

I thought they both sucked ***, personally. I was bored out of my skull... and I was actually really interested in watching the debate. Bleh. Obama was all over the place.

evsoul

iTrader: (1)

I liked it actually. I thought it was very back and forth and a lot of low but classy blows.

SilverScoober02

I thought they both took their shots with Obama slightly having the edge. I thought McCain just highlighted how old he was with most of his answers which, lets face it with Palin as the VP is a serious concern....I am actually more interested in the vp debate...

Superglue WRX

McCain:
- He was passionate and well spoken and did dictate the direction of the debate
- When the current economic crisis was brought up he just began talking about earmarks and govt. spending
- Didn't discuss real plans for Iraq or Pakistan and kept with his ideal of simply "winning" these wars
- Refused to look at Obama at all (could be good or bad depending on who you are; I happen to think it's rude and arrogant)
- Spoke about his his experience and ideals, yet I feel he should have spoke more about his plans and policies

Final grade: B+

Obama:
- Followed McCain's lead during the debate but still seemed very knowledgeable and able to go tic for tac with him
- When the current economic crisis came up, he let John lead the conversation into govt. spending which was not the topic, although Obama was able to make a few key point
- Seemed to have a wide scope idea of international issues and stood strong on his ideas while preventing McCain from maintaining the focus on Iraq
- Had well thought out ideals and was not afraid to dispute his differences with McCain who tried to run the show

Final Grade: B+


I think the debate was a tie and both candidates missed opportunities to run away with a "win". I'm not a big fan of McCain's stance on Iraq, Iran, and Afgahnistan. I like the fact that he does have tons of experience, but I still think he's got his blinders up when looking at the big picture. I think Obama's foreign policy stance made more sense, but I want to here more about his plans for the economy which is need of leadership now more than ever.

evsoul

iTrader: (1)

I agree, I think you should always look at the person you are talking to. Obama gave that respect for sure.

But I feel Obama's plan of action was not thought out well for the whole Iraq/Pakistan/Afghanistan situation.

And I 100% stand behind what McCain said about the pre-conditioned meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.. Obama being willing to sit down and listen is ridiculous. You can't just sit down and talk to a madman hoping for a democratic resolution, because if you could they wouldn't be a madman.

The way I see that is its like having an absolutely psycho girlfriend that no matter how non-threatening your tone is, or how logical your thoughts are, she will never understand and remain a psycho girlfriend.

Superglue WRX

I completely understand. However, without serious negotiations, how do we solve the issue with Iran's current threats?

At this time, I don't believe there is a write or wrong answer, but I wasn't sold on McCain's stance on the issue of Pakistan. I'd like to hear him speak more about what he thinks or actions should be.

Marit

iTrader: (1)

HA!
I think BOTH need a lot more coaching on watching their facial expressions, maintaining tone of voice, and work on decreasing their impulsivity. There were quite a few points during the debate where it became a little hard for me to watch. But ultimately, I've gotta admit I was pretty glued to the TV. One reporter said you can almost see McCain's clear dislike for Obama; that something about Obama really bothers him. I agree it was very clear in his facial expressions-often a sneer-that this was indeed the case. Also, Obama kept mispronouncing John McCain's name and even called him Jim a few times, which I found hilarious and really interesting from a social psych perspective. They were both completely talking over Jim Lehrer and totally ignoring his cues, and at points just plain quibbling like children. I thought it was pretty funny when Lehrer made them address each other directly. My parents totally used to do that to my brothers and I when we fought as kids.
Obama is absolutely more polished, without a doubt. His speech is clear, he's good looking, confident, articulate, etc.
McCain, however, came off as being much less composed. Yet as one reporter said was he basically schooling Obama on appropriately engaging in foreign relations, which I really saw when they were going back and forth about meeting without preconditions. Obama genuinely seemed like he was learning from McCain and his lack of knowledge of international relations was glaringly obvious; he strikes me as naive and overly trusting at points. During a time like this its so important to feel confident with our leader's ability to work effectively with other countries. Obama showed a real lack of strength in that sense once again, imo.

Here is the transcript from that part of the debate, just for fun:

McCain:Senator Obama twice said in debates he would sit down with Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Raul Castro without precondition. Without precondition. Here is Ahmadinenene [mispronunciation], Ahmadinejad, who is, Ahmadinejad, who is now in New York, talking about the extermination of the State of Israel, of wiping Israel off the map, and we're going to sit down, without precondition, across the table, to legitimize and give a propaganda platform to a person that is espousing the extermination of the state of Israel, and therefore then giving them more credence in the world arena and therefore saying, they've probably been doing the right thing, because you will sit down across the table from them and that will legitimize their illegal behavior.

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. Look, I'll sit down with anybody, but there's got to be pre-conditions. Those pre-conditions would apply that we wouldn't legitimize with a face to face meeting, a person like Ahmadinejad. Now, Senator Obama said, without preconditions.

OBAMA: So let's talk about this. First of all, Ahmadinejad is not the most powerful person in Iran. So he may not be the right person to talk to. But I reserve the right, as president of the United States to meet with anybody at a time and place of my choosing if I think it's going to keep America safe.

And I'm glad that Senator McCain brought up the history, the bipartisan history of us engaging in direct diplomacy.

Senator McCain mentioned Henry Kissinger, who's one of his advisers, who, along with five recent secretaries of state, just said that we should meet with Iran -- guess what -- without precondition. This is one of your own advisers.

Now, understand what this means "without preconditions." It doesn't mean that you invite them over for tea one day. What it means is that we don't do what we've been doing, which is to say, "Until you agree to do exactly what we say, we won't have direct contacts with you."

There's a difference between preconditions and preparation. Of course we've got to do preparations, starting with low-level diplomatic talks, and it may not work, because Iran is a rogue regime.

But I will point out that I was called naive when I suggested that we need to look at exploring contacts with Iran. And you know what? President Bush recently sent a senior ambassador, Bill Burns, to participate in talks with the Europeans around the issue of nuclear weapons.

Again, it may not work, but if it doesn't work, then we have strengthened our ability to form alliances to impose the tough sanctions that Senator McCain just mentioned.

And when we haven't done it, as in North Korea -- let me just take one more example -- in North Korea, we cut off talks. They're a member of the axis of evil. We can't deal with them.

And you know what happened? They went -- they quadrupled their nuclear capacity. They tested a nuke. They tested missiles. They pulled out of the nonproliferation agreement. And they sent nuclear secrets, potentially, to countries like Syria.

When we re-engaged -- because, again, the Bush administration reversed course on this -- then we have at least made some progress, although right now, because of the problems in North Korea, we are seeing it on shaky ground.

And -- and I just -- so I just have to make this general point that the Bush administration, some of Senator McCain's own advisers all think this is important, and Senator McCain appears resistant.

He even said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he -- you know, he wasn't sure whether they were aligned with us. I mean, Spain? Spain is a NATO ally.

MCCAIN: Of course.

OBAMA: If we can't meet with our friends, I don't know how we're going to lead the world in terms of dealing with critical issues like terrorism.

MCCAIN: I'm not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I'm president of the United States. I don't even have a seal yet.

Look, Dr. Kissinger did not say that he would approve of face-to- face meetings between the president of the United States and the president -- and Ahmadinejad. He did not say that.

OBAMA: Of course not.

MCCAIN: He said that there could be secretary-level and lower level meetings. I've always encouraged them. The Iranians have met with Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad.

What Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a "stinking corpse," and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments.

This is dangerous. It isn't just naive; it's dangerous. And so we just have a fundamental difference of opinion.

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.

And we ought to go back to a little bit of Ronald Reagan's "trust, but verify," and certainly not sit down across the table from -- without precondition, as Senator Obama said he did twice, I mean, it's just dangerous.

OBAMA: Look, I mean, Senator McCain keeps on using this example that suddenly the president would just meet with somebody without doing any preparation, without having low-level talks. Nobody's been talking about that, and Senator McCain knows it. This is a mischaracterization of my position.

When we talk about preconditions -- and Henry Kissinger did say we should have contacts without preconditions -- the idea is that we do not expect to solve every problem before we initiate talks.

And, you know, the Bush administration has come to recognize that it hasn't worked, this notion that we are simply silent when it comes to our enemies. And the notion that we would sit with Ahmadinejad and not say anything while he's spewing his nonsense and his vile comments is ridiculous. Nobody is even talking about that.

MCCAIN: So let me get this right. We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says, "We're going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth," and we say, "No, you're not"? Oh, please.

OBAMA: No, let me tell...

MCCAIN: By the way, my friend, Dr. Kissinger, who's been my friend for 35 years, would be interested to hear this conversation and Senator Obama's depiction of his -- of his positions on the issue. I've known him for 35 years.

OBAMA: We will take a look.

MCCAIN: And I guarantee you he would not -- he would not say that presidential top level.

OBAMA: Nobody's talking about that.

MCCAIN: Of course he encourages and other people encourage contacts, and negotiations, and all other things. We do that all the time.

LEHRER: We're going to go to a new...

MCCAIN: And Senator Obama is parsing words when he says precondition means preparation.

OBAMA: I am not parsing words.

MCCAIN: He's parsing words, my friends.

OBAMA: I'm using the same words that your advisers use.

Please, go ahead.

Superglue WRX

I don't think Obama got schooled that bad on the foreign affairs. Obama also pointed out that McCain was wrong about how he said the war was going to be quick, easy, and where the WMAs were. McCain jumped back into focusing on the surge and the "winning" idealism.

Also, McCain gave no real solutions for Iran either. Anything he said about Iran in the debate was only to undermine Obama's "unconditional" comment.

psoper

I hate both of them more than I did before, they both seem to think we have some god-given obligation to support Israel no matter how brutal they are, and police the rest of the world while looting the treasury at an unprecedented level, and neither recognizes the true scope of the economic catastrophe that it going on around us. Obama agreed with McSame most of the night, and McSame sounded like an older and more clueless (if that's possible) version of W. -attacking Obama personally while his knowledge of the issues was nearly absent, other than keeping saying "I've BEEN there, so I know..."

We'll I've been to DC and from everything I learned there I'd say we're screwed with either of these Bozo's in the white house. (with apologies to everyone who ever starred on TV as Bozo the Clown)


They are both clueless props for the status quo- If Ralph Nader and Bob Barr or Ron Paul had been there, at least real issues might have been talked about and questions answered, but these guys stuck to their party talking points and I'm sure made their handlers happy.

Traxamillion

iTrader: (1)

mccain won handily, a tie? Please foreign policy is mccains bread and butter. how many times did you guys hear obama say mccain is absolutely right? I think i counted 11.

Superglue WRX

Only you and Fox News think he won the debate handily. The polls and a large amount of political annalists would say that the candidates were neck and neck. Each candidate had solid counterpoints for the other.

SilverScoober02

Man, I want some of what you are smokin.....

Magish

iTrader: (2)

How high are you?