Tuesday's match-up at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., will be moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw, with the questions to be culled from a group of 100 to 150 uncommitted likely voters in the audience and another one-third to come via the Internet. The Gallup Organization -- as in past debates like this -- has the job of making sure the questioners reflect the demographic makeup of the nation.Brokaw is NBC's liaison with the McCain campaign.
...
An audience member will not be allowed to switch questions. Under the deal, the moderator may not ask followups or make comments. The person who asks the question will not be allowed a follow-up either, and his or her microphone will be turned off after the question is read. A camera shot will only be shown of the person asking -- not reacting.
While there will be director's chairs (with backs and foot rests), McCain and Obama will be allowed to stand -- but they can't roam past their "designated area" to be marked on the stage. McCain and Obama are not supposed to ask each other direct questions.
"Midway through this debate season, voters offered their opinions on the presidential tickets — and which one they think has performed best.posted by ericb at 11:24 AM on October 7, 2008
By a substantial margin, voters told multiple pollsters that the Obama-Biden ticket has easily outperformed the McCain-Palin ticket.
As the trailing team headed into four weeks of debates, John McCain’s campaign could not afford to lose any of those televised battles. But losing them they are.
And what’s more, they’re losing the debate perception game.
...What do voters want from these debates?
Whatever it is, McCain hasn't given it to them. Maybe they want more detail, maybe they want more anti-Bush rhetoric, or maybe the want more pointed contrasts with rival Barack Obama.
This last idea is going to be especially tricky for McCain to pull off tonight. Physically, he's going to be close in proximity to Obama and he's going to be answering questions from voters, not the media.
So if McCain pivots too hard to attack mode, he risks looking tone deaf to the current economic crisis and the voters will punish him for that.
McCain has to figure out a way to present himself as a credible problem solver.
...This is Obama's strength, not just looking calm in a storm, but coming across as pragmatic. But he may be lacking the ability to channel the country’s anger. Expect that to be McCain’s opening on Tuesday night.
He needs to be angry but also pragmatic in how he presents himself."
Obama and Ayers were both politically active members of Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, and both were affiliated with the neighborhood's University of Chicago. But the very New York Times article that Palin cited as a source concluded that "the two men do not appear to have been close."Sure, the Times article did say all that. But then again, reading is for commies.
So Palin’s "palling around" accusation is no more true than her boast that she "told congress ‘Thanks, but no thanks’" on the Bridge to Nowhere, or that she had the Alaska Permanent Fund divest from Sudan.
"As we know,posted by ericb at 7:38 PM on October 7, 2008 [3 favorites]
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know."
—Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing
Count all the comments and see if you can match up the number to the sequence of the comments in this thread. You might also want to Google GreaseMonkey (and that's not a racial epithet)You might also want to just link to the comment instead of using some convoluted scheme that only works in a certain browser and requires an addon for anyone to make sense of it. Or is using HTML some crazy Liberal thing?
Wait, I missed it -- what was the "that one" reference?After McCain spoke about some Senate vote for a bill that he implied was bad, he said something like "You know who voted for it? That one. You know who voted against it? Me."
"That one." God, he's such a snide, nasty, small man. That's what people are seeing, and how far it really is from the big maverick-y myth that's been perpetuated for so long.Huh? It's easy to be a maverick about Senate votes. But being a maverick about basic human decency? Now that's some serious maverickosity!
You know, I don't see McCain shaking anybody's handHe shook an audience member's hand tonight.
why does cbs always mix writing numbers in words and using numbers, in the same sentence?A lot of people believe you should not begin a sentence with a numeral.
Meanwhile, over at the National Review, "We have a disaster here".From that link:
With due respect, I think tonight was a disaster for our side. I'm dumbfounded that no one else seems to think so. Obama did everything he needed to do, McCain did nothing he needed to do. What am I missing?You're missing your talking points, you filthy hippie! Now get in line before I say you hate America!
After the debate, Palin praised McCain's performance, saying the night went "great."Oh, you betcha!
1hr 26min into the debate (how I heard it)You know, once Obama becomes president, I'd really like to see him (and I think he would, given the kind of man he has shown himself to be) offer a position in his administration to McCain that would be at least a gesture to his experience and history, unironically, for McCain to have the opportunity to regain a little of the honour he's squandered so dismayingly during this campaign, before he dies.What position should John McCain be entrusted with?
"The McCains and the Obamas moved about the stage separately for a little while after their debate, greeting people on the stage, but not each other. Then John McCain tapped Barack Obama's back briefly and Obama turned and reached his hand out. Rather than shaking it, McCain directed him to his wife, Cindy.posted by ericb at 7:27 AM on October 8, 2008
If it wasn't clear on TV, photos showed that the two men did shake hands after Tuesday's contest. But that awkward physical moment highlighted a reality that viewers were reminded of repeatedly Tuesday evening: There's no love lost between these two men.
And it was McCain, slipping in the polls and increasingly on the attack in recent days, who appeared to have far more trouble concealing his apparent distaste for his opponent. He even began the evening with a dig.
'Sen. Obama, it's good to be with you at a town hall meeting,' McCain said. Obama declined to participate in town hall settings with McCain earlier in the race.
And then there was the comment, likely to be much remarked upon, about Obama's vote on an energy bill. 'You know who voted for it?' McCain asked, thrusting his finger in Obama's direction but not looking at him. 'That one.'
It was a comment that could be interpreted several ways — harmless, offensive, merely annoying — but it bothered Tim Groeger, an undecided voter from Morristown, N.J.
'I didn't feel that was very professional,' said Groeger, 28, an accountant. 'I felt McCain was very aggressive. Obama seemed to stay cool and collected.'
...More than in the previous presidential debate, body language proved telling on Tuesday night, and it reflected the status of the race: a contest transformed by the economic crisis, with Obama ahead in the polls and McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, stepping up the attacks in a vigorous effort to shift the momentum.
With no lecterns, just chairs upon which to perch while the other was speaking, the candidates showed a lot more of themselves. Obama strolled the stage while speaking, while McCain seemed to pace it. And Obama sat generally still when McCain was talking, while his opponent scribbled notes more frequently, his notebook spilling over the small table.
With the physical contrast — and their obvious age difference — more pronounced in this setting, it seemed apt that one of the only humorous bits touched upon that gap between the 47-year-old Obama and the 72-year-old McCain: a quip by McCain that he might need hair transplants."
"During the debate, McCain made another of his seemingly demeaning, nasty references to Obama. Describing legislation that had been backed by President Bush, McCain rhetorically asked, 'Guess who voted for it?' and then answered his own question: 'That one,' he said, gesturing toward Obama. On CBS, commentator Jeff Greenfield thought 'that one' would be 'the major headline sound bite' of the debate, which goes to show, in part, how insubstantial the debate was.posted by ericb at 8:33 AM on October 8, 2008
But the snarled 'that one' also contributed to McCain's image as a kind of mean old Scrooge, not so much a battle-scarred warrior as an embittered one. 'Intemperate' is an adjective often applied to him, and again McCain demonstrated why."
Mr. Biden’s tax returns show why he consistently ranks as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate. He has virtually no outside or investment income and pays a substantial amount in interest on his home mortgage.From wikipedia:
With a net worth between $59,000 and $366,000, and almost no outside income or investment income, he is consistently ranked as one of the least wealthy members of the Senate.[61][62][63] Biden states that he has been listed as the second poorest member in Congress, a distinction that he is not proud of, but attributes it to being elected early in his career.posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:39 AM on October 8, 2008 [1 favorite]
After days of attempts to persuade voters that Obama’s ties to ‘60s radical Bill Ayers are a crucial character issue, McCain didn’t mention Ayers’ name during the 90 minutes of Tuesday’s forum. His top aides suggested afterward that, going forward, the candidate wouldn’t focus on the former domestic terrorist nor invoke the name of Obama’s controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.Another day, another change in strategy from the McCain campaign. Maybe now they can try "a respectful campaign based on the issues."
Was I the only one who thought this was a clear dig at Senator Biden
Last time I checked we were a country striving to educate our children to be intelligent and honest. I think I would die if my daughter came home from school and said something like “I gotta tell ya. Change is a comin’.” At the very least I would remove the Beverly Hillbillies from her approved TV viewing list.[...]
Oh and my favorite - my husband Todd (the first dude) and I sit around the kitchen table wondering about the cost of college like many of you… oh really. Your oldest son went from high school into the military. Your next oldest is pregnant with plans to be married to some hockey jock at age 17. Seems to me you’ve got lots of time before you have to worry about college tuition especially being college doesn’t seem to be a priority in your family.[...]
One more thing. The only comments that really made me mad were the fools that came here preaching the bible and all that pro-life crap. Most pro-life nut cases need to actually get a life and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing.
I think the subtext is 'lose like a man, already.'
Combat had its own infinite series of tests, and one of the greatest sins was "chattering" or "jabbering" on the radio. The combat frequency was to be kept clear of all but strategically essential messages, and all unenlightening comments were regarded as evidence of funk, or the wrong stuff. A Navy pilot (in legend, at any rate) began shouting, "I've got a MiG at zero! A MiG at zero!" -- meaning that it had maneuvered in behind him and was locked in on his tail. An irritated voice cut in and said, "Shut up and die like an aviator." One had to be a Navy pilot to appreciate the final nuance. A good Navy pilot was a real aviator; in the Air Force they merely had pilots and not precisely the proper stuff.-- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
'Naked aggression into Georgia.' So that would make Russia General Sherman.
Or is using HTML some crazy Liberal thing?
The two major presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), both say that they take climate change seriously. But an examination of their positions on the issue shows important differences. Obama has a far more comprehensive plan, with an ambitious goal for emissions reduction, a market-based mechanism that has broad support among economists on the left and the right, and substantially greater investments than McCain's plan in technologies that will help achieve these goals. McCain stresses removing environmental restraints on domestic and offshore drilling. This is hardly a serious long-term solution to anything; even if major new fields were found, they would have no effect on supply for at least a decade, and they would do nothing for climate change or conservation.But then comes this:
As a cautionary tale, it is worth recalling President Jimmy Carter's fervent but unsuccessful attempt to rally the nation in a prime-time televised speech in April 1977. Wearing a much-mocked cardigan sweater, he said that his energy-independence project would be the "moral equivalent of war." When someone pointed out that the initials of that phrase spelled "meow," the press had a field day, ignoring the substance of Carter's proposals. A true national debate was deferred for 30 years. One of Ronald Reagan's first acts as president was to remove from the White House roof the solar panels Carter had had installed. [Emphasis added]WTF Reagan? What was that all about? Did he think solar panels were witchcraft or something? That they emitted commie rays? Here you have a source of power for the White House that would actually, however modestly, reduce what taxpayers would pay to keep it juiced. And Reagan removes it, probably because solar power is hippy-dippy tree-hugging librul stuff. Man, every time you trace the roots of the utter pig ignorance of today's Republican party, you will always come to the vapid, empty, grinning, wrinkled visage of Ronald Reagan staring back at you.
"On Wednesday, Barack Obama surged to his biggest lead yet in the Gallup Poll, 52-41 percent over John McCain. And that gap could grow even larger in the next few days.posted by ericb at 3:25 PM on October 8, 2008
That's when Americans will make it clear they think Obama won Tuesday's debate with McCain.
Obama has been at or above the magical 50 percent victory margin the past five days.
Why? Because people recognize McCain has no answer on the nation's economic problems -- and McCain has been in Washington all these years as the crisis approached."*
Brokaw: All right, gentlemen, we've come to the last question.Can anyone explain that non-sequitur? If McCain said that, would we be calling it the product of an aging mind?
And you'll both be interested to know this comes from the Internet and it's from a state that you're strongly contesting, both of you. It's from Peggy in Amherst, New Hampshire. And it has a certain Zen-like quality, I'll give you a fair warning.
She says, "What don't you know and how will you learn it?"
Sen. Obama, you get first crack at that.
Obama: My wife, Michelle, is there and she could give you a much longer list than I do.
You talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded.
Conservatives Call Obama’s Correct Pronounciation Of Pakistan ‘Exotic’ And ‘Annoying’.
Watch these morons. Palin's mob. (Youtube, not suitable for civilized people)"What do you know about ACORN?"
You can comment all you want on who won and who didn’t. I haven’t got a clue. But here is what my heart is telling me. I am 82 years old (83 in December). It’s time to hand the reigns over to the next generation and hope that we did a good job raising them. To Senator McCain I say, with love in my heart, sit down and shut up. You’re beginning to look like an ass and your answers sound like a cross between Barnie Fife and Floyd the Barber. And no matter how many times you start a sentence with “My friends” if you end it with a bunch of stuff that really doesn’t make sense… well eventually someone like me is going to call “bullshit”.We need to get this woman a Mefi membership.
Actually, let me state that a little differently. ALL OF US have to call “bullshit” right now. There is too much at stake. You can’t agree with George Bush all of the time and then say you are about change. You can’t say the economy is strong in the morning and then say it’s a crisis that afternoon. You can’t be about deregulation for 25 years and then suddenly be against it. And for God’s sakes war can’t be the answer to everything.
It is impossible to overstate how counter intuitive this slow-build approach was for Democrats. Even Regional Field Director for Southwest Ohio, Christen Linke Young—who I witnessed in 2004 pushing independently for just this strategy as an Ohio FO [Field Organizer] in Franklin County—said it was scary to take this patient approach:posted by shiu mai baby at 4:39 AM on October 9, 2008 [5 favorites]
"We had a whole month where, on our nightly calls with headquarters, we did not report our voter contact numbers. We only reported our leadership building. I definitely stayed on top of what our voter contact numbers looked like. But headquarters wasn't paying attention to how many voters we registered or how many doors we knocked that day—they were paying attention to how many one-on-one meetings we had, house meetings, neighborhood team leaders recruited, how many people we had convinced to come to this wonderful training in Columbus that we had. Yes, it was definitely scary to see how big our persuasion universe was and know that our first priority was not to just be tearing through that."
But Christen said the meticulous building has paid off: "And then last weekend we [teams in Christen's area] had 100 volunteers on Saturday canvassing—which is not something I ever would have thought was possible. And they knocked on 2,500 doors. And so you go: 'OK, it paid off, it worked.' We spent a month focusing on getting the pieces in place and now we can knock on 2,500 doors on the first Saturday in September. I'd love to count up how many canvasses we actually staged that day but I think most organizers had at least two canvasses—they were able to be in two places at once because they had recruited and trained leaders who could run their own canvasses and who could train other volunteers in persuasion."
I'd love to see an equivalent analysis of the McCain ground effortHere you go
Only the polka band, which entertained the crowd before the speeches, seemed unaffected by the pervasive anger in the arena. "Ha, ha, ha, come join my happy song," sang the man with the accordion. "Clap along!" The crowd clapped. "We're going to party tonight," he crooned, "with joy and laughter, that's what we're after."Christ Almighty. It's like a scene out of a Stephen King novel, one of the ones where civilization has been all but annihilated and the insane mob of survivors is getting ready to execute one of the central characters for fun.
One campaign book that has already bitten the dust is right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt's How Sarah Palin Won the Election ... and Saved America, which the literary agent Curtis Yates sent to publishers in New York last week.posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 7:55 AM on October 9, 2008 [1 favorite]
When Media Mob reached Mr. Yates by phone on Monday, he'd already given up on trying to sell the book.
[...]
The title of the book, Mr. Yates said, "went through a couple of different iterations."
At one point it was How Sarah Palin Won the Election. At another point it was How Sarah Palin Won the Election ... and Saved America.
"If they were to lose the election it would have just been How Sarah Palin Saved America," Mr. Yates said. "We were trying to cover our bases depending on what may happen."
"Should public school students be taught that contraception and condoms can prevent unintended pregnancy and disease?"This article got me thinking. The press and Palin's supporters have really given her a pass on this situation. We are all just supposed to say, "Isn't it lovely that Bristol is going to get married," and accept that this is "a normal up and down of family life." Aren't we all wondering, "Did you allow Bristol too much freedom? Did adoption ever come up? What about college? How will Levi and Bristol support themselves? What advice would you give to the parents of teenagers?" These are the kind of questions that ordinarily would be asked by someone in the MSM-- the human interest side of the story-- but because the candidate has severely curtailed her media interactions, they are questions that will remain unasked. The GOP message is "Sarah Palin is a great mom," and they won't allow that message to be challenged.
Palin has referred to her teenage daughter's pregnancy as a normal "up and down" of family life.
Let’s be clear. We've observed no comparison between these ground campaigns. To begin with, there’s a 4-1 ratio of offices in most states. We walk into McCain offices to find them closed, empty, one person, two people, sometimes three people making calls. Many times one person is calling while the other small clutch of volunteers are chatting amongst themselves. In one state, McCain’s state field director sat in one of these offices and, sotto voce, complained to us that only one man was making calls while the others were talking to each other about how much they didn't like Obama, which was true. But the field director made no effort to change this. This was the state field director.One campaign runs on genuine enthusiasm, hope and excitement about the future. The other runs (barely) on grousing. Guess which one is going to win.
Sarah] Palin is the most libertarian candidate to run since the Reagan administration … we’re fighting to hold territory, not to take it. We just need to hold off the left till genomics can come through. We’re going to be knocking off sacred cow after sacred cow in the next decade or so …Flee, young scientists! Save yourselves!
The Democrats do not want the genetic discoveries to lead to widespread knowledge about the truth about human differences. The Democrats are really more anti-Darwinian than the fundamentalist Christians who deny the origin of species [...]Thus if human-sciences research is shut down in the U.S.A., our understanding will cease to advance, or will advance much more slowly. A mass exodus of researchers to some more hospitable nation, in the manner of Jewish scientists fleeing the Nazis, is not likely.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made an overnight change in the homeowner bailout he proposed at Tuesday’s presidential debate, making it more generous to financial institutions and more costly for taxpayers. McCain's staff says it was always meant that way.OK so I made that last part up. But come on, it feels true, doesn't it?
The [American Homeownership Resurgence Plan] posted and e-mailed by the McCain campaign on Tuesday night says at the end of its first full paragraph: “Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.” But when McCain reissued the document on Wednesday, that sentence was missing, to the dismay of many conservatives. That would mean the U.S. would pay face value for the troubled documents, which was the main reason Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) gave for opposing the plan.
McCain told reporters, "I have no intention of winning this election, so I'm basically doing what I can to sabotage even my marginally good ideas. And I'm not stopping there. Watch this." McCain then reached into his jacket, pulled out a revolver, and fired it into the air, shouting, "Wagons, ho! Wagons, ho! Yee-haw!"
What is interesting is that it seems that she actually does not have any prescription in there. How can I tell? Well, if you look at the photo or photos of her wearing these glasses, the lens doesn't seem to alter the underlying facial features (behind the lens) even one bit. Typically, a photo of someone wearing prescription eyeglasses will show distortion of facial features seen immediately behind that photographed lens. So why is she wearing glasses at all? Perhaps she has a very, very slight perscription. But I bet that this is her way of expressing her sense of fashion. Plus eyeglasses make you look more mature and a lot of business professionals and politicians employ this tactic of wearing eyeglasses to look more intelligent and more executive.It doesn't make her any more or any less of a phony, but it would be funny if the sudden popularity of her signature look is based on prop glasses.
Back to the topic/country at hand: I have to work tonight. Is there anyplace online where I can watch the debate sometime after 11pm est?
posted by Manhasset at 7:19 AM on October 7, 2008