holy crap… that’s 10,000 points for a 1776 reference at a presidential debate.
No, I was thinking of exactly the exchange you referred to.
He did say what you quoted here, but his next line was “But we are going to have to have some leadership from Washington that not only sets out much better regulations for the financial system.” To me, that qualifies the first sentence, in very much the same way that McCain’s answer is an implied, qualified “no.” Substantively, they did not offer a great argument for their qualified no answers, but to say that Obama offered an unqualified “no” is a mischaracterization, and seems to attempt to suggest that Obama has some kind of belief that the economy, in and of itself, will not worsen.
Thanks for the transcript, because it reminded me of another odd moment during McCain’s response, when he referred to a letter he and a group of senators wrote that did not have Obama’s name on it, with an oddly damning tone. Should we expect that Obama’s name would be on every letter that McCain writes? Weird.
I hope “That One” doesn’t get overhyped - NBC said Obama’s people were emailing reporters about it within minutes. Particularly I hope it doesn’t get made into a racial thing. It was part of McCain’s pattern of being dismissive and petty but shouldn’t be blown out of proportion.
I don’t think anyone’s mentioned this so far: I’m amazed McCain still bothers bringing up the “I suspended my campaign” garbage. The suspension lasted, at most, about 50 hours and that’s a very generous estimate. Nobody bought the “suspension” in the first place, and the bailout bill then failed anyway and didn’t get passed until campaigning had been back on for almost a week. (And that’s charitably ignoring the fact that McCain’s ads never stopped running despite the suspension and that, even though he suspended his campaign on a Wednesday afternoon, he stayed in New York to do the Couric interview, have dinner, address the Clinton group in the morning and didn’t get to DC until midday Thursday… after “unsuspendy Obama” had already arrived.)
And it doesn’t exactly mesh with “steady hand at the tiller” either.
I thought that was very strange too. That’s when I made that crack about ‘I’ve got the name of 500 communists’ joke waaaay upthread.
Also, I’ve read elsewhere that the ‘that one’ thing is being taken as a racist remark. Dismissive and rude, yes. Racist-- I don’t think so. McCain has a line he uses in his stump speech “Which Senator (referring to Obama)? THAT Senator!” It’s supposed to be a funny gotcha. Only McCain forgot the ‘which Senator’ part during the debate.
There is no doubt in my mind that Camp McCain is using Palin to stoke racial fears. She is their pitbull with lipstick. McCain himself, however, never struck me as racist at all. Condescending, rude and cranky but not racist.
No.
That (including “that one”) was boring indeed! Not sure I can bring myself to watch another 90 minutes.
Don’t see how it changed anyone’s mind much - tho I suspect folks who like one candidate or the other are even more unable to understand what anyone sees in the other guy.
The (non) answer that bugged me the most was McCain on Social Security. First he says “I’ll answer the question.” Then he has the temerity to say, “Look, fixing SS is easy. All you have to do is reach across the aisle.” I wish one or the other had had the nerve to say that any number of tweaks can improve SS, but it just isn’t politically advantageous for anyone to urge them right now, cause any tweak will piss off someone, and the crisis can be pushed off on whoever follows you in office.
What a crappy format. Anyone have any idea how the 1-minute “discussion” was supposed to work? Was it 1 minute per candidate after the question, or 1-minute total including the question and discussion. Cause I kept wondering how Brokaw was being all pissy about the 1-minute limit, when he kept asking 45 second long questions.
I wish Obama would learn to limit his responses somewhat. Often he would give an adequate response, and then IMO weaken it by continuing onto some more general position soundbite. I think shorter, more direct answers would help either candidate appear more credible.
That’s a fair reading too. My point was that I think they were both avoiding the obvious.
I’m not arguing that it was racist, but this is the second time in this thread that someone has defended the comment by saying that he just left out the “senator” part of the formulation. That doesn’t make sense, given that his comments were “You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me.”
Given this omitted senator defense, shouldn’t his conclusion be “You know who voted against it? This one.”? Instead the contrast is “That one” and “me.”
After saying “that one” voted for it, McCain should have said, “What has two thumbs and voted against it? This guy!” Could have picked up votes from a few The Office fans at least. 
One of Obama’s great strengths is his biggest weakness. The wonk. It’s what’s going to win him this election, his ability to sit down with policy and dry facts and massage it into a plan. It also puts to sleep people like my husband, who worked for a state senator for 10 years and still watches the state senate sessions on cable. There he was on the couch, catching zzzz’s as Obama droned on about taxes and how his economic plan would benefit the economy as a whole.
Still, what this country needs right now is a boring wonk and not a mavricky friend and people seem to realize that.
Is that from The Office or Scrubs?
watching this debate with a cold was very, very, difficult.
the question on what don’t you know and how do you find out was good. and i knew a wife would be brought up in that one. obama did not disappoint in that.
i did think he would bring up the internet though… he can surf and it is a good tool.
of course a responce like: after checking with my wife, i then (thanks to al gore) go to the internet. uncle cecil and my millions of teeming cousins will help me with fact finding !
the sdmb would have exploded!!!
Maybe both - I haven’t seen that many episodes of Scrubs. On The Office it’s the catch line of Michael’s famously boorish best friend Todd Packer.
I don’t think McCain is giving the marching orders any longer - I think they are coming from the GOP brass, who are lining up Palin for a run in 2012 (which sounds so crazy I can’t believe I’m even typing it, but I really think that is the plan).
Also, I’m not sure what the eBay gaffe was that has been mentioned in the thread, but I got a chuckle when McCain said this about eBay: “Maybe somebody here has done a little business with them.” Not exactly a gaffe, but I don’t think anyone who was actually familiar with what eBay is and how it works would have phrased it that way.
Agreed 100% Pashnish Ewing, McCain hasn’t been in charge of his campaign for a long time. It’s pretty clear that he told his staff to just do whatever it takes to get him elected, and he’d sign off on it.
It’s probably a topic for another thread, but I disagree. Party brass doesn’t run campaigns, the candidates do. Leaving the sharpest attacks to the VP and surrogates is part of “acting presidential.”
What was the context? Was he actually talking about Meg Whitman (which would be a logical place in the debate for eBay to come up) as Treasury Secretary? Or was it a McCainian non sequitur?
McCain should definitely avoid anything that inspires comparisons to Bob Kelso. He gets tarred with the “cranky old man” brush often enough as is!
Incidentally McCain bought his cranky old man brush from a door-to-door Fuller brush salesman. 
On the last question, and I don’t recall what it was, Obama went into his riff about being raised by a single mom and his grandparents.
I love Obama. But please, that story has been heard. Say something else. Or answer the question simply.
What I thought was weird was the assertion that 1.3 million people “make their living” off eBay. Is this remotely close to being true? That 1.3 million people’s jobs are selling things on eBay?