Presidential debates

[Ron Whitfield]

Round 1 bell has rung.
Opening remarks from each candidate, pau.

[pzarquon]

Re: Presidential debates

It's interesting to watch real-time running commentary from everyday folks via the snazzy Twitter search page. Open up the #debate08 search page and listen to the debate at the same time. Collective commentary!

[MyopicJoe]

Re: Presidential debates

Thanks for the link, Pzarquon. I have to admit it's a bit creepy, but I suppose it's no different from a chat room.

[LikaNui]

Re: Presidential debates

As usual in presidential nominee debates, both people are making claims about the other that the other then denies. I'm looking forward to some of the fact checkers.
Is FactCheck.org the best source, or even a reliable source? Are there others, and are they better?

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Presidential debates

Pretty much a dud for me.
Give a slight edge to JMc for driving the topics, whether or not he spoke truthfully, and keeping Obama on the defense for the most part.
The stage is now set for the fact checkers to lay it out. In another day we'll know who get's the bump.
NPR is mostly calling it a draw, and saying that a draw is a win for Obama.
I'm not so sure.

[TATTRAT]

Re: Presidential debates

Serious business. I think it was for the most part a draw, but I am still torn...well, not that torn, I am leaning for Obama, McCain seemed to doge some questions or just NOT answer and has too many "story time" moments.

I felt Obama did a great job of replying, staying on topic, and making valid points.

I am not 100% for or against either one. More then ever, this election will be about the lesser of two evils, and I will vote not to vote "for", but to vote against.

[LikaNui]

Re: Presidential debates

CNN is already doing some fact checking at this link.

[Frankie's Market]

Pretty much a dud for me.
Give a slight edge to JMc for driving the topics, whether or not he spoke truthfully, and keeping Obama on the defense for the most part.

If by "dud," you mean that neither candidate landed a knockout blow, that no major gaffe was committed, then yes, this first debate was not a turning point in the presidential race. It actually got boring at some points, like when McCain and Obama were going at each other when it came to the importance of establishing pre-conditions when it came to diplomatic negotiations with rogue states. I don't know if any of it will really resonate with voters.

Taken as a whole, I see this debate as coming out about even. Both candidates had their moments. And both campaigns have reasons to feel good about the debate result.

For McCain, the last couple of weeks have been rough for the GOP ticket, with his missteps on the economy and falling poll numbers. When he threatened not to show up for this debate, it had skeptics wondering if McCain was unprepared, running scared, and was using the economic crisis as a cover to skip the event. That he performed as well as he did tonight, even when it came to navigating the early questions on the economy,... one could reasonably state that McCain ended this tough week on a positive note and stemmed the recent momentum for the Obama campaign.

For Obama, he can feel good that he more than held his own in a debate that was primarily focused on foreign policy, which is supposed to be McCain's strength and selling point. And indeed, the conventional wisdom going into this first debate was that Obama didn't have to score a decisive victory over McCain when it came to matters of foreign policy and national security. In a year when the economy is in shambles and the vast majority of those polled feel that the country is in need of change, all Obama had to accomplish was to pass the minumum threshold where voters feel comfortable with him being the Commander-in-Chief. And I think he did just that.

So to conclude, while I think the debate (as a whole) has to be considered a draw, I think that it ultimately works out in Obama's favor that he came out with a tie on what was supposed to be McCain's home turf of foreign policy. The next presidential debate (Oct. 7) will be a town hall format. The third and final debate (Oct. 15) will focus on domestic policy, which likely plays into Obama's strength.

[tutusue]

Re: Presidential debates

[...] It actually got boring at some points, [...]

Pheeeeew!!!! So it wasn't just me?! About an hour into tonight's debate I became bored with the tit for tat banter so I took a shower after my day at the beach!

[Walkoff Balk]

Re: Presidential debates

So, it's a zero-zero score after the first quarter. Was it good defense or bad offense?

[TATTRAT]

Re: Presidential debates

Pheeeeew!!!! So it wasn't just me?! About an hour into tonight's debate I became bored with the tit for tat banter so I took a shower after my day at the beach!

you got tit for Tat? tutu, I never knew...

[LikaNui]

Re: Presidential debates

I agree that it was boring at times and that it was pretty much a draw. I think a draw in this case equals a slight win for Obama.
I was surprised to see this CNN poll from moments ago:

Who fared better in the first presidential debate?

Sen. John McCain... 28%... 31,232

Sen. Barack Obama... 67%... 75,592

Neither... 6%... 6,303

Total Votes: 113,127

[tutusue]

Re: Presidential debates

you got tit for Tat? tutu, I never knew...

You didn't stick around long enough to find out! Your loss!

[Vanguard]

Re: Presidential debates

"I watched this at a bar tonight. The sound wasn't on, but I think I got the gist of it."

The only thing that caught my eye on the closed captioning was McCain's point about the troop surge working and Obama being wrong about Iraq. But of course, in this 90 minute debate, almost half of which was devoted to economy (thank you, MTV-like factoids on the screen), they didn't seem to get into other possibilities, like opposition waiting for the election to resume their activities, or the charges of ethnic cleansing, which I think are quite serious, and don't seem to get a whole lot of attention.

But of course, I am probably missing a lot of details.

[sansei]

Re: Presidential debates

hi this is sansei and in response to frankies market,i somewhat agree only obama himself said that mccain called him naive,i myself believe mccain is correct is when mccain pointed out that if obama were to pull the troop's out to quick,osama bin laden would try to get control of iraq and make them do his unkind work for him so i would vote mccain since he was a pow in Vietnam and he was in The vietnam war and he know's when to bring the troop's home and when to send them to afghanistan to get osama bin laden.

my vote after this debate will defenitely be for mccain and palin.

Well thank's for your time