Ugh. Agreed. Neither candidate seemed to know what the hell they’re going to do with the economy. Obama started off stammering and stuttering his way thru the answers while McCain seemed to not even here what question was even asked. What sacrifices will Americans have to make? Earmarks. Ugh.

McCain has missed plenty of opportunities along the way, but I am more and more convinced by Clark’s argument that a win by Obama might be good for the Republican Party. Hopefully so.

And McCain’s new plan of the gov’t buying up people’s mortgages and renegotiating them made me cringe a little.

Brokaw’s moderation was awful.

This McCain makes me wonder. The grumpy old man McCain–the one who was so dismissive and contentious in the Republican debates with Romney. It just seems like such cantankerism wouldn’t really have gotten anyone so far in politics as McCain has come.

The format was terrible–I didn’t like to see either of them floating around out there. And Brokaw needs a classroom management course–any first grade teacher knows you can’t just sit there and yell at the kids to “follow the rules.”

ESO – yeah, the grumpy old man schtick didn’t play well last night. And what was the deal with him standing in the background looking like he was ready to pounce whenever Obama stood up to ask a question? Take your seat, sir. I think at some point during the debate an aide motioned for him to get back behind his chair and stop vulturing. I feel sorry for McCain, he should have won in 2000. His time has come and gone.

I’m with Tim on McCain’s mortgage buy-up plan. Won’t that prevent home prices from adjusting to where they should be?

One thing is for sure: any steps that the government takes to artificially prop up housing prices will come at the expense of the lower middle class. These are people who would be able to afford homes if prices were allowed to drop to fair market value. I think the poor would also be harmed by such a move because their rent would stay higher than it otherwise would (I’m assuming here that rent prices correlate with home prices). I don’t see anyone acknowledging this harm.

DKL,
As someone who used to be Republican and wouldn’t mind wandering back into the Republican camp at some point, I hope Sarah Palin is NOT the future of the party. Nor Huckabee. Either of those two would be the “no soliciting” sign on the front door to your party. If the Romney of Massachusetts would return, then I’d probably find my way back, but I fear for the future of the Right if Palin becomes the face.

Regarding the debate, I mostly agree, neither side did well. Neither side answered the questions (Obama didn’t even fake like he was answering the question about what he doesn’t know). I think McCain is cooked at this point. And what the hell was up with his whisper/angsty/whiney/(some would say condescending)-voice? And ENOUGH WITH SAYING “My friends”!!! It’s creepy and ridiculous. And there was just way too much tit-for-tat on both sides, and Brokaw did nothing to help that.

Oh yeah, and McCain’s mortgage plan. That was out of nowhere and completely ridiculous. Does he know NOTHING about how real estate works in this country? Unbelievable.

Aren’t you aware of the ethics investigation in Alaska right now? The report will be released on Oct. 10, as matters now stand, and that may the end of Sarah Palin in politics. Unless you and millions of your friends think that public office should be used for personal vendettas (she fired the law enforcement official who refused to fire her soon to be ex brother in law, and reinstated a contract with an extra 300K for a company that denied said brother in law workman’s compensation that he had previously qualified for) If you are all about using public office to settle personal scores, she’s the candidate for you! Rah!

I confess that I am still furious that an actually qualified female wasn’t picked. Kay Bailey Hutchinson anyone? And, what, may I ask, is the matter with Condolezza Rice?

Rusty: As someone who used to be Republican and wouldn’t mind wandering back into the Republican camp at some point, I hope Sarah Palin is NOT the future of the party. Nor Huckabee.

Amen bro. Sarah Palin is the female Mike Huckabee in my opinion and if that is the future of the GOP then the future is bleak indeed for Republicans. I’m like you in that I would be willing to wander back to the GOP again if that party could only start sucking less over the next decade.

And double amen to the complaints about “my friends”. I find myself hearing it in Ren’s chihuahua voice (from Ren and Stimpy) every time he says it now. It could hardly be more grating.

I didn’t feel well and went to bed early, taping the debate for later. Bill sat up to watch it. This morning, he said, “It seemed like all they did was slam on each other. I finally changed the channel.”

I guess the “Keating” “Ayers” things are more important than we thought, if only to use against each other. I really don’t know anything about the Ayers deal. Nothing. And little about Keating, except that McCain’s wife was pretty tight with Keating and that McCain seems to have dodged a bullet.

I thought Obama seemed much more relaxed and presidential. In fact, he looked quite hot.

Please. The ethics investigation was underway long before the vice-presidential pick was made.

Mccain’s non-answer about being forced to cut back was laughable – he’d give up all the expensive programs that do no good anyway. And he didn’t name any, he just said wasteful, useless programs in general.

Like a job interview where you’re “biggest weakness” is you listen to your customers too well and can’t keep from arriving on time every day.

ugh, sorry for the “you’re”. sheesh.

I confess that I am still furious that an actually qualified female wasn’t picked. Kay Bailey Hutchinson anyone? And, what, may I ask, is the matter with Condolezza Rice?

AMEN!!!

I’m sorry, Palin keeps sliding further down by the second. I Loved her convention speech. then I actually looked up what she said. As with most politicians, she lied the whole way through. I can’t rely on speeches to inspire me, since someone else wrote the speech and all this person had to do was deliver it. It speaks nothing to their credibility and qualifications.

That debate was 1.5 hours of my life I’ll never get back. The format was terrible, the candidates did awful… I don’t think obama knows what a red light means, and McCain… I won’t even go there. When you start out the answer to your question attacking the other candidate, and the other candidate is not allowed to respond… what did you think was gonna happen? An out of control debate.

Debate format: horrible

Brokaw’s moderation: worse

“My friends”: aarrrrrrgghhhh!!!!! so grating.

Obama: dude, answer the question! He was almost pulling a Palin with the rampant question-ignoring (almost.–at least he kept it in the same topic area). I’m as die-hard an Obama supporter as they come, but that started to really annoy me.

DKL, I’m glad to see you acknowledge that Obama is a pragmatist. It was humorous to me to see the right paint him as some kind of looney left of Che Guevara. I have a feeling Obama’s presidency will have plenty of moments that break the hearts of many liberals. His recent FISA vote is a sign of things to come. He’s still our candidate, but, just sayin’.

“Sarah Palin is very likely the future of the Republican party”

The Republican party very likely doesn’t have much of a future after the mess Bush and his cronies are leaving behind for others to fix!

I love hearing how broken Washington is from a couple of guys who are considered Washington. Oh, right, John McCain (or Obama for that matter) is the exception to all the brokenness. Okay.

I feel badly for Tom Brokaw. All night long he tried to help both candidates by encouraging them to keep it short and simple. Neither one seemed interested in his advice. Both would have benefited from following it.

“But really, whoever from their campaigns agreed to the 2 minute thing was nuts–haven’t they met their own candidates?”

My thoughts exactly.

“the worst part of this (from a Republican electoral perspective) is that the inevitable financial-market recovery over the next several months will make President Obama look like a genius just for being in the right place at the right time.”

I agree here too. But Obama has a very small margin of error if anything should happen foreign policy-wise.

… i counted over 15 times. I gave up after that.

I watched my recordings of HIMYM, The Bing Bang Theory, and NCIS (skipping through commercials), and then tried to find a ballgame – any ballgame – until it was over.

Sarah Palin is very likely the future of the Republican party.

You know, I’m totally fine with McCain picking her as a veep. But if she’s the future … well, I’m glad I’m an independent.

Wow is that format annoying. I want a debate, not a chance for each candidate to give a shortened stump speech about each topic. I used to like Brokaw reading the news, but last night he was horrible. And “my friends” is annoying as hell, I’m so glad we only have to hear that for a few more weeks.

Obama won (and every poll of undecideds I’ve seen agrees with me), but only because neither candidate said anything, and McCain has annoying traits like “my friends” and lumbering around behind Obama instead of sitting still.

and every poll of undecideds I’ve seen agrees with me

I only care about likely voters in swing states.

“The Republican Party has no future, as long as it continues to define itself by types like Bush, McCain.”

And yet, in spite of all of this, the Democratic nominee only has a 5-point lead.

“And yet, in spite of all of this, the Democratic nominee only has a 5-point lead.”

And that is with outspending the Republicans 3 to 1. Do you think the Democrats will always have such a financial advantage?

Seriously, they said all the things about Reagan that you’re saying about Palin. Everybody always underestimated Ronald Reagan.

Ma’am, I was alive during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. You’re no Ronald Reagan.

People underestimated Dubya, too.

Why do people think that being underestimated is a calling card, something to be proud of?

Although, let’s not kid ourselves.

Sarah Palin/2008 = Bill Clinton/1992

at least, according to Bill Clinton/2008.

The best part of the whole night was when McCain derisively referred to Senator Obama as “that one”.

I think he came dangerously close to saying something racist and in throwing the whole contest by having a Greg Stillson “Dead Zone” moment and showing everyone who he really is, thereby finishing himself off for good in the process.

I guess I’ll just have to hope for the moment to arrive in the final “debate”.

Mark,

The McCain campaign has been mockingly referring to Obama as “The One” for months. It’s a spoof on the pseudo-Messiah undercurrent of his campaign. I tend to think that McCain was about to call him that but thought better of it and used “That One” instead.

#49: In the end, McCain will be lucky to win a couple of states.
#51: You don’t get it. The Republicans have no nominee. McCain is running against both parties because he has contempt for both parties, as does Palin. They are willing to throw the GOP under the bus and replace it with the McCain, Palin, Leberman ” Maverick Party”.

Like Rusty, I vote more Democrat now than in the past, but I still vote Republican. In fact, I am leaning toward voting Republican in a hotly-contested gubernatorial race in my state (WA). Also like Rusty, I cannot imagine myself ever voting for Palin—at least the version we’ve seen.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I like Rusty.

#62: Okay, 10 states. What is delusional is that Obama is winning because he spends more money.
MaCain and Palin are being use by the GOP in the same way Dole was: as scapegoats or fall guys. It will be said they lost the election, not the GOP.

Several years after his terrorist bombings, Bill Ayers received his professorship in the field of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He became involved in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), an ‘educational’ directive to radicalize American school children by reteaching them a revisionist version of American history (wherein Ayers attributes our government as being unjust, racist and imperialist), he was able to secure a $50 million grant. To administer these grant monies, Barack Hussein Obama was hired (Obama and Ayers knew each other at this time). These funds were increased to a final total of over $100 million which were, over a five year period, distributed by Obama to radical, left-wing extremist groups, such as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). ACORN is a marxist organization promoting “affirmative action” lending practices by pressuring banks to make sub-prime loans to unqualified recipients under the guise of “fair housing”. They have been involved in many cases of voter fraud, as well. Principally, however, groups such as ACORN were instrumental in fighting to require mortgage lenders (like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to push the envelope of irrational lending practices, and threats of legal action for “redlining” played an important role in their success, unjustly promoting a perception of racism.

In conjunction with a well documented history of predominantly democratic senators and house representatives protecting both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with congressional support (including Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Charles Schumer and Barack Hussein Obama), an assurance of government backing were these institutions to need help, has led America today to the edge of financial chaos. Aside from Dodd, Obama received more monies for campaign support (over $126,000) from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than did any other member of Congress! Furthermore, it would seem appropriate at this point to question how it is that psyeudo-governmental agencies are legally able to in the first place extend finances as donations to political candidates? People need to be aware that it was in fact John McCain who sought to impose increased regulation on the mortgage lending industry, sponsoring a bill to do so in 2005. That bill was killed by democrats, the most outspoken of which was Barney Frank (D-MA, Democratic House Financial Services Committee Chair). Recently, it was revealed that Frank had a gay-lover whom he referred to as his “spouse” that was an executive for Fannie Mae.

So, is it any surprise that, as part of the first “bailout” package that democrats in the House of Representatives brought forward sought to include a slush fund for ACORN? Were that initial House bill to have passed with republican support, then a provision to move 20% of all profits from the bailout into a “housing trust fund” (a fund which the democrats have traditionally used to infuse monies into political-action groups such as ACORN) would have carried.

Jessie, link fixed. Thx for the heads up.

Hey DKL, thought you might get a kick out of this: David Brooks says that “[Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican Party.” Ouch. linky FWIW, I would never put any stock in David Brooks’ opinion on anything. So, frankly, it’s probably good news for you that Brooks disapproves of Palin.

Buckley famously said he’d rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn’t think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I’m afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

sister blah 2, The most revealing part of the interview is here:

The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there’s no time to think or make decisions.

This is the most self-important bunch of nonsense I’ve read in weeks. He’s saying here that the more he follows politicians, the more he grades them on how well they meet his expectations.

Furthermore, his little bit about, “believe me, once in office there’s no time to think of make decisions” would be a silly thing to believe if it weren’t kinda dangerous. I guess all those White House memoirs by presidents and cabinet members that talk about crises and decisions and conferences to weigh options are just made up to keep the American people in the dark about how things really happen, like when Reagan decided to negotiate with European banks to problematize the USSR’s financing, he thought, “I know, we’ll do what we did in California!”

How any self-respecting journalist could say something that stupid is beyond me. It just shouts, “MORON!” If Sarah Palin had offered this as an answer to the question, “Why is experience important?” Everyone would be saying, “That’s it. Proof positive. The woman is a total idiot.” But that’s an editorialist at The New York Times for ya’.

Obama was like the guy who gets up with 1 minute left in fast and testimony meeting and gives a 20 minute testimony.

Obama: “Tom, can I just briefly respond to that.”

Brokaw: “No, we have to move on.”

Obama: “It’s important.”

… 15 minutes later …

Brokaw: “Okay, next ‘question’ will be from the D section.”

“Furthermore, his little bit, ‘believe me, once in office there’s no time to think of make decisions’ would be a silly thing to believe if it weren’t kinda dangerous.”

That really struck me also. What a bizzare thing to say. Of course preparation is a good thing, but no amount of preparation negates the need to do some original thinking in the moment as well.

Jacob J, lolz!

djinn: The original investigation of Sarah Palin that DKL refers to as a partisan witchhunt was agreed to by eight republicans and four democrats. If it was partisan, then it was the republicans (by a 2-1 margin) acting partisanly

And by Palin’s request, both the Alaska Attorney General and Alaska State Personnel Board are investigating troopergate, too. Of the three investigations, only the legislative investigation is being run by Obama’s top supporter in Alaska, Hollis French.

Thanks to the fact that Republican executives have recently tended to be reasonably free of corruption, the Democrats have invented out of whole cloth this notion that it’s a scandal to fire an at-will employee who serves at the leisure of the executive branch. When Nixon fired Archibald Cox, there was a real scandal going on underneath it, and it never occurred to anyone that there Nixon wasn’t perfectly within his rights to fire the guy.

Regarding the workman’s comp claim, the guy (officer Wooten) was snowmobiling while he was supposedly disabled. Palin is the whistle-blower, and officer Wooten is the one committing a criminal offense.

SL,

Since I am the one who called Palin the female Mike Huckabee I am curious to know why you don’t think that comparison works. At least on the surface they have a lot in common: Evangelicals with a folksy charm who were elected to be governor of smallish states. Both were adequately intelligent and savvy to get elected as governor and both get evangelicals all giddy when they are on the national stage while making lots of non-evangelicals a bit queasy.

In what ways is Palin more like Reagan than Huck? (I certainly can’t see Reagan ever getting worked over by someone like Katie Couric in the way Palin was. Then again, I have trouble seeing Huck getting that worked over by Couric…)

Well, Reagan had folksy charm as well–working on the ranch, straight talk of evil empires and flakey leaders of foreign countries.

The biggest difference is that Huck is a preacher and Palin is not. She is one who has sat in the pews, but not commanded and motivated a congregation like Huckabee. In his speeches, Huckabee always sounded like a preacher, particularly one who enjoyed the sound of his own voice too much. He always came accross as one speaking to his own little congregation, where Palin speaks to the American people and does not layer her rhetoric with biblical allusions. Just look at the convention speeches. Huckabee about had everyone bored to death with his longwinded story about the desks and soldiers. Palin, in contrast, had everyone on their feet with a fiery conservative speech. Huckabee connects with people from the pulpit, Palin does so on the street as a fellow citizen.

I’m sure there are other things, but that’s what comes to mind at the moment.

Palin’s approval rating in Alaska is now 62%. Still pretty good, but a rather precipitous move in the wrong direction:

Link here.

Then again, indicted senator Ted Stevens is only 8 points behind her in approval rating so who knows what any of it means.

Left field, Palin wasn’t ridiculing community service. She was ridiculing “community organizing,” which is the practice of giving homeless people cartons of cigarettes to vote for Democrats and show up at protests.

But please explain why the federal government should be paying for a planetarium projector for a local planetarium? If it’s such a great cause, then why aren’t the people of Illinois paying for it?

The Adler is hardly a “local planetarium.” It was the first planetarium in the hemisphere. It’s a major tourist destination, along with the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. I have a photograph of myself as a kid in the 1960s outside the planetarium when I visited Chicago with my family. It’s a major national science education institution.

I have no problem whatsoever with it receiving federal funding, particularly every 40 years or so when it needs a new projection system. Federal support for their major capital expenditure seems entirely appropriate.

But that’s not really the point. I wouldn’t be angry if McCain simply disagreed with me on whether Adler should receive federal funding. He could have said, “It’s a great institution, a national treasure, and a new projection system is sorely needed. But federal funding is the wrong way to go about it. Here’s how I think the projection system should be funded…”

But no. He mocked it as an “overhead projector.”

“It’s a great institution, a national treasure, and a new projection system is sorely needed. But federal funding is the wrong way to go about it. Here’s how I think the projection system should be funded…”

I don’t think Brokaw would have given him enough time to say all of this.

Maybe so, but then, losing 18% in a couple of months must be enormous. Bush, Sr. lost over 50% in little more than a year. Some have been arguing for Palin’s bright future in the party based on already out of date approval ratings. Just pointing out that these ratings can change dramatically (and already have) and are no guarantee.

he now advocates a policy toward Iran and North Korea that (for all its rhetorical difference) is materially indistinguishable from the Bush policy of the past 8 years.

You have not been paying attention if you think Bush’s policy on Iran and North Korea has been the same for the last eight years.

Bill,

Within those approval numbers, her Democratic approval rating dropped from 60 percent to 36 percent. If she wasn’t running against “The One” it wouldn’t have done so.

“She was ridiculing “community organizing,” which is the practice of giving homeless people cartons of cigarettes to vote for Democrats and show up at protests.”

That’s nonsense. The Dallas Cowboys don’t need to be bribed by cigarettes to vote for Obama.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3631733

Left Field: The Adler is hardly a “local planetarium.”

It is exactly a local planetarium. In Boston (like in many other metro areas) there’s an aquarium, a science museum, fine arts museum, and a children’s museum. There are a variety of museums relating to the American revolution and post-revolution Americana (i.e., Old Ironsides, which actually is owned by the US Navy). The fact that people come from out of town to see these doesn’t make them any less local.

I don’t care how important the Adler is or how good an idea it is to buy them a new projector, I don’t want every local museum funded by earmarks in the US government — Adler included. Why don’t they do what other museums do and have fundraisers? Because Barack Obama is their Senator, that’s why. It disgusts me, and McCain is excatly right.

Furthermore, this is an education expense related to science — it is not science.

I get really tired of the Democratic presupposition that every thing related to science is worth spending federal funds on. As soon as McCain said that about the planetarium, I thought to myself, “Somebody’s going to call him anti-science.” I read online shortly thereafter somebody who said, “I want to see how long it takes someone to accuse McCain of being anti-science.”

It’s enough to make one want to bulldoze the Adler.

BriainJ, it has long been the case that people suppose that the US Constitution protects everything that is good and right in the world; e.g., when the US Congress tried to use the commerce clause to justify “The Violence Against Women Act,” which was unanimously found to be unconstitutional based on lack of Federal jurisdiction (and, according to the logic Biden applied to it in the VP debate, because all 9 justices support violence against women).

Nowadays, there’s a similar reflex that Federal tax dollars should fund everything that is good and right in the world. This is often the rationale for the pork that representatives bring home — who can be against a projector for this landmark planetarium? Earmarks are part of that problem. It’s not the Federal governments job to fund everything that is good and right in the world. (Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good argument against the bailout, too.)

Left Field,

I never heard of the Adler until the debate. I would be much more happy with Chicago folks getting together the funds from the community to make it happen. Obama is experienced with that- he could have done it. It’s simply a waste of Federal Money, especially when you consider the other programs the gov’t has stewardship over.

BrianJ,

Another problem with earmarks is they are essentially legalized bribery. “Vote yes on our bill and we’ll send $10M into your district, that will help you get re-elected.”

Sometimes the bribery relates to who gets the earmark such as the $1M earmark that Obama requested to be given to the hospital where his wife works.

I agree with Senator McCain – we should get rid of earmarks entirely, they are a bad idea.

“Sometimes the bribery relates to who gets the earmark such as the $1M earmark that Obama requested to be given to the hospital where his wife works.”

After she was given a substantial raise no less.

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGRiMWFhNWY4MTgzMjI3NjEzNGQwMWFiMTlhYmRhN2Y=

BrianJ,

Here is how “Dr No” describes the problem:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007950

Brian,

The idea is that federal taxes should be spent on federal projects. If something needs to be done locally then it can be accomplished through state or city taxes.

The hopeful end-result is that the residents of Arizona would get to keep more of their own money in the form of less taxes, instead of paying more taxes and trying to weasel some of the money back through earmarks.

#114,

There are federal programs for al of those things. The soon-to-be-bankrupt highway fund, FTA funding for rail, nuclear programs, etc. Let constituencies battle it out for those funds, not $3 million that could have been acquired through a legitimately bureaucratic application process that required some ammount of legal due diligence/process.

Otherwise, its just stealing from programs that could make wide, beneficial use of the funding.

Okay, one more thought before I hit the road, just to show that I’m on the same page with you (Aluwid and nasamomdele). I’m a big proponent of the NIH and it infuriates me when certain research projects get earmarked support. I think putting a given amount into the agency and then letting the agency (peer review) decide how best to allocate is far better than letting a senator decide which research projects have the greatest merit and promise.

Thus, much of my questioning comes from a lack of knowledge about how other agencies distribute money. There isn’t a peer review process in the FTA, etc., is there? Something comparable (in terms of impartiality and expert knowledge)?