McCain: Women’s “Health” Could Mean Anything
Yeah, he really did put a mother’s health in finger quotes. If he’s wasn’t already dead in the water with female voters, he sure is now.
Archive for posts ‘debates’
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Joe the Plumber in ‘08
Joe the Plumber: For the Pipe-Changing We Need
Since Joe the Plumber isn’t going to be on the ballot, let’s see how the two candidates who will be fared in tonight’s debate:
CBS:
Obama: 53
McCain: 22
CNN:
Obama: 58
McCain: 31
MediaCurves:
That’s three for three for Obama (four for four for the Obama-Biden ticket). The American people want Barack Obama to lead the country, not Grumpy McNasty.
For added fun, Kos finds an interesting gem in the CNN post-debate poll:
Obama’s connection to William Ayers matters to you…
Great Deal 23
Somewhat 14
Not Much 11
Not At All 51
Maybe if McCain wasn’t avoiding talking about real issues like the plague he might have a shot.
Finally, hows about a little caption contest?
I can already think of a couple. Leave your best suggestions in the comments (and tell your friends!).
Update: Forget running for president. Per Ben Smith, Joe the Plumber isn’t even registered to vote.
Update 2: Oops, it turns out the Joe is registered to vote as a Republican in Lucas County, and Jed L at DKos catches that Joe might not really be an undecided voter after all.
SNL Does the VP Debate
Tina Fey is back to being a permanent cast member through November 4.
Sarah Palin’s Debate Strategy
Polls Give Obama Debate Victory
The numbers are in from Friday’s debate, and it looks like good news for Team Obama:
By 46%-34%, those who watched said Obama did a better job than McCain. Obama led McCain, 52%-35%, when they were asked which candidate offered the best proposals for change to solve the country’s problems.
…
The debate had a positive impact for Obama on handling the economy; 34% said they had more confidence in him to fix economic problems after seeing the debate, while 26% said they had less. For McCain, 37% reported having less confidence and 23% said they had more.
CNN:
Fifty-one percent of those polled thought Obama did the better job in Friday night’s debate, while 38 percent said John McCain did better.
Men were nearly evenly split between the two candidates, with 46 percent giving the win to McCain and 43 percent to Obama. But women voters tended to give Obama higher marks, with 59 percent calling him the night’s winner, while just 31 percent said McCain won.
“It can be reasonably concluded, especially after accounting for the slight Democratic bias in the survey, that we witnessed a tie in Mississippi tonight,” CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib said. “But given the direction of the campaign over the last couple of weeks, a tie translates to a win for Obama.”
…
National security has been an issue where McCain has held an advantage, but his edge over Obama — 49 percent to 45 percent — on the question of which candidate would best handle terrorism is within the poll’s 4.5 percent margin of error.The economy, which has been Obama’s terrain this cycle, dominated the first half of the debate. Debate watchers gave him a 21 percentage point edge — 58 to 37 percent — on the question of which candidate would do a better job handling the economy.
By a similar margin, those polled said Obama would be better able to deal with the current financial crisis facing the nation.
CBS:
Thirty-nine percent of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. Twenty-four percent thought John McCain won. Thirty-seven percent saw it as a draw.
Forty-six percent of uncommitted voters said their opinion of Obama got better tonight. Thirty-two percent said their opinion of McCain got better.
Sixty-six percent of uncommitted voters think Obama would make the right decisions about the economy. Forty-two percent think McCain would.
Forty-eight percent of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. Fifty-six percent think McCain would.
MediaCurves: Independents preferred Obama’s responses to every question asked during the debate. 61% of Independents polled through Obama won the debate, compared to 38% for McCain.
Also, for those of you who were a little disappointed with the number of times Obama said “John is right,” Virginia Del. Kris Amundson (D-44) has some food for thought:
Fess up. On Friday night, you wanted Our Guy to strike back. You wondered why he didn’t say, “As a matter of fact, John, I dounderstand.” You wanted him to smack somebody upside the head.
Or maybe that was just me.
But as the polls have come in and I’ve had a chance to look at the internals, I was the one who was smacked upside the head with this realization: These folks know what they’re doing.
For a lot of us (on both sides) the election is already over. The Twelve Apostles could come canvassing at my door for John McCain and I wouldn’t change my vote. So in that debate, Barack Obama didn’t have to talk to me.
He did need to talk to the undecided voters. Who loved the fact that he wasn’t mean. Who loved it when he said he agreed with his opponent. Who want a President, in other words, who acts Presidential.
Debate
Well, it’s nice that we actually got to have a debate tonight.
Gut reactions: on a topic where most people probably expected John McCain to do well, Barack Obama held his own and then some. As much as McCain tried to insist that Obama was naieve, I thought Obama came off as fairly polished and well-versed. During the economic half, Obama listed real policy plans, as opposed to McCain’s angry rattling off of tired campaign talking points–at times it almost felt like McCain was giving a stump speech rather than participating in a debate (especially with that ridiculously creepy smile). Jim Lehrer kept repeating that the two should be talking to each other, and Obama certainly seemed to be doing a better job of that.
If you watched CNN, they had this little graph at the bottom of the screen where the posted real-time reactions from focus groups of self-identified Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. The blue and red lines stayed where you would have expected them to, but Obama hit really high marks with independents the vast majority of comments while McCain tanked every time he mentioned the war (and then some).
All in all, coming off of his ridiculous suspension stunt McCain needed a big win, but he didn’t get it.
Also, I think it’s time for someone to beam Jim Lehrer back up to the mothership. Seriously, the guy looks like an alien sometimes.
Update: Just to clarify, I think Lehrer did an excellent job moderating. No 30-second limits or shouting down the candidate. He tried to let the two candidates go back and forth as much as possible (you know, like a debate) and kept himself on the sidelines, as the moderator should be. So my above comment was not a critique of Lehrer’s moderation–on the contrary, it should be emulated for the rest of the debates.
Is McCain Trying to Stall Bailout Plan to Avoid Debates?
At the Clinton Global Initiative this morning, McCain said:
I cannot carry on a campaign as though this dangerous situation had not occurred, or as though a solution were at hand, which it clearly is not. As of this morning I suspended my political campaign…It has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the Administration’s proposal to meet the crisis. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time. So I am returning to Washington to seek five fundamental improvements to this critical legislation.
Except there are multiple reports this morning that a deal on the bailout is nearing completion. So is McCain going to ride into Washington, raise all sorts of objections to the proposed compromise plan, and then back out of tomorrow’s debate? Or push tomorrow’s debate back to October 2nd, postponing the VP debate until Palin has more time to prepare (or preempt the veep debate entirely)? Something is not right here.
Update: Obama says:
Congressional leaders have made progress in their negotiations, and appear close to a deal that would include these principles. President Bush addressed some of these issues last night, and I’m pleased that Senator McCain has decided to embrace them too. Now is a time to come together — Democrats and Republicans — in a spirit of cooperation on behalf of the American people.
Later today, I’ll be traveling to Washington to offer my help in getting this deal done. Then, I’ll travel to Oxford on Friday for the first of our presidential debates. Our election is in 40 days. Our economy is in crisis, and our nation is fighting two wars abroad. The American people deserve to hear directly from myself and Senator McCain about how we intend to lead our country. The times are too serious to put our campaign on hold, or to ignore the full range of issues that the next President will face.
Shorter Barack Obama:
Palin Fails Couric Interview
When asked for specific examples of McCain pushing for more regulation of Wall Street, Palin couldn’t find a single one:
COURIC: You’ve said, quote, “John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business.” Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more example of his leading the charge for more oversight?
PALIN: I think that the example that you just cited, with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie–that, that’s paramount. That’s more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.COURIC: But he’s been in Congress for 26 years. He’s been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.
PALIN: He’s also known as the maverick though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he’s been talking about–the need to reform government.
COURIC: I’m just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?
PALIN: I’ll try to find you some and I’ll bring them to you.
Well, now I understand why the McCain campaign desperately wants to postpone the VP debate indefinitely.
Bass-Ackwards
Following a SUSA poll showing that the vast majority of Americans don’t want to postpone one debate, the McCain campaign has now proposed postponing two debates.
Huh?
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