September 27, 2008

  • Debate 1

    Alright, I'm sure there are going to be many of these abounds, but here's my writeup of the first debate.  It's pretty much a draw...

    Both candidates pretty much stuck to their strengths.  Obama, being the better orator, was better organized than McCain, numbering each of his statements.  He had more "specifics" than McCain but was awfully acquiescent with McCain.  It felt like Obama was on the defensive, partly because there may have been untrue statements, but more often times than not, he "absolutely agreed" with McCain.  Neither candidate offered specifics about the bailout, though Obama did list no loss of money for money for mortgages, no CEO benefits, and something to help out current homeowners.  I suspect however, that McCain was more silent on the matter because he may be in opposition to the current $700 billion bailout plan.  I think he made a passing reference to his concern about how the American people will be burdened with the bailout currently structured.  I could be hearing things though.  The thing that bothered me about McCain was his repeated statements about government spending.  While it may be true that he has a track record of cutting spending, you don't have to mention it every single moment you can get.  Interestingly, Obama also agreed with spending cuts.  Overall though, I give the edge to Obama.

    As for foreign policy, I'm going to have to give the edge to McCain.  I felt that his experience backed by personally being in each of the foreign settings gives him a leg up.  He spoke with the confidence of an experienced person while Obama, while well-spoken, seemed to flounder a bit.  Particularly interesting was Pakistan.  I was a bit concerned with the notion that if Pakistan isn't going to help out with Pakistan, then we'll do it ourselves attitude that came from Obama.  It is a bit unfair to extrapolate a bit, but that's what it amounts to if we decide to bomb Pakistan, if we knew Bin Ladin was there.  McCain called this a political gaff, though, I wouldn't say that calling the Iranian government and economy incompetent, or North Korea's average height being 3 inches shorter than South Korea as warranting high praise.

    The difference on Iraq was interesting.  Obama points to the past while McCain points to the future.  For Obama, we shouldn't have been there in the first place, one of many faults of the current administration, and so wants to pull out of Iraq whether the job there is finished or not...16 months and that's it.  McCain has not set a timetable, but sees an end to the Iraq war, although what he plans to do with Afghanistan is less clear.  That said, McCain has actually been there so he knows it's a huge place, bigger Iraq, which probably means more troops and a change of culture.  The problem with that is culture takes time to change, which means a prolonged time in Afghanistan.  It really comes down to a matter of which problem candidates want to tackle first.  It is difficult to fight a two front battle...as any Civilization 4 gamer would know, so one needs to be dealt before the other.  The problem is, we are already committed in Iraq.  If we switch now to Afghanistan, it is possible that we could lose the costly gains made in Iraq.  So here, I agree more with McCain than Obama.  It is absolutely true that the next president won't be dealing with why we got into the war, but what to do now that we're in it.

    Though, it's hard to declare a winner in this debate, this was supposed to be a debate about foreign policy.  If that was it, then I would give the debate edge to McCain.  We'll see what happens when the focus realigns to the economy, since part of the economy was already talked about.