Organizing for America | MsMaeven's Blog: My thoughts on the first debate

My thoughts on the first debate

By IA for Obama ☮ - Sep 27th, 2008 at 12:32 am EDT

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Barack did an outstanding job. He demonstrated clear mastery of the material, great depth of understanding of the complexity of international relations and our economy, and an ability to genuinely relate to what most Americans are going through and what our top priorities and concerns are.

McCain did a better job than I expected, I'll admit, but he also showed a cavalier disregard for the truth, blatantly lying again and again, and demonstrated his erratic nature which makes so many Americans uneasy. His answer to how this bailout will affect his budget alarmed me--cut all spending except defense?! That's never going to happen, first of all, and if it did what does that say about our priorities? All other aspects of our government--health care, education, agriculture, etc--should be totally neglected so we can have war and further enrich Wall Street? In what world is that a helpful solution? Furthermore, McCain's condescension--stating 7 times that Barack "doesn't understand" xy or z, and that he doesn't have the knowledge or experience to be President--coupled with his refusal to look at Barack and speak directly to him, played very poorly for McCain.

I was surprised, though, that Barack did not make some of the more obvious points that would have strengthened his performance even further. First, with respect to the surge: Barack has consistently said that he fully expected our military to perform brilliantly, and that if you add more of our highly trained troops the violence levels would go down; that, however, was not the purpose of the surge, which was to enable the Iraqi government to make political progress. That has not happened, which is why the surge was a failure, with even the Bush administration acknowledging that the vast majority of the benchmarks had not been adequately met. Secondly, McCain's mischaracterization of Barack's withdrawal plan as some random date circled on a calendar could have been more forcefully rebutted, especially by pointing out how even the Iraqi government and now the Bush administration have acknowledged that a timetable for withdrawal is necessary--nobody but John McCain wants us in Iraq for 100 years or more. Thirdly, Barack could have pointed out how interested he was to McCain's response to the situation in Georgia, which was belligerent and ill-informed, demonstrating his Cold War mentality and his shoot first, aim later approach to diplomacy. And lastly, I know Barack is a gentleman, and I admire him for it, but he could have hit him much harder on his own specific role in our crumbling economy. Barack doesn't have to bring up Keating 5, but it is a valid part of the record for voters to consider (and of which most are ignorant).

All in all, Barack did a terrific job, especially considering that this was supposed to be McCain's strongest subject. But, just in case this "Barack was wrong about the surge and won't admit it" spin sticks, please remind people of the intent of the surge, Barack's consistent position on it, how Barack has also been consistently right, and how even the Bush administration has had to acknowledge it.

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