Joe The Plumber Went To Bed

Things I never want to hear again:

1) Senator Obama voted to raise taxes on people making 42 thousand dollars a year. 

-We heard it before, in the past two debates. Obama has explained it, twice before in each debate. But tonight he said something I really liked: "Even Fox News disputes it". Go Obama!

2) Joe the Plumber.

-I understand that there is Joe who happens to be a plumber out there. But I never want to hear about him again. I suppose it is good that "Joe Six pack" who got such a workout in the vice-presidential debate was put to bed. Maybe he found the local AA meetings, I don't know. But I don't want to hear about Joe the plumber again. If I find a plumber I like who happens to be named Joe, I may not hire him.

3) Bill Ayers.

-Thank God for Obama. I loved him pointing out that the debates and the last three weeks should be about the issues, not about some guy who did some despicable things when Obama eight years old. I liked that Obama said he could handle three more weeks of attacks but that the country could not handle 4 more years of failed economic policy. I also enjoyed Obama's point that McCain's focus on Ayers said more about McCain's own campaign than it said about Obama himself. And McCain claiming that he didn't care about some washed up terrorist kind of underscored his own point.

I also thought that McCain seemed to come off as petulant and very immature. I was almost out of my seat when McCain said that there were things yelled at Obama rallies that he, McCain, wasn't happy with; had I been Obama, I may have snapped, "Yeah, but at least those at my rallies aren't threatening your life". If Obama could handle three more weeks of attacks, McCain whined about the little nicks he has been subject to. If I had to take a worse or more unsettling insult, I would take the "terrorist" or "kill him" more to heart than anything Obama or Obama's people said about McCain. Obama came off as much more presidential on this particular issue than McCain did. Especially since the only negative statements I have heard about, especially John Lewis', were in response to McCain's own side's attacks on Obama.

Things I Liked:

Obama on the abortion issue. I thought that Obama embraced the shades of grey. I wish he had cast anti-abortionists as anti-choice. I wish that McCain et al. of the anti-abortion side would stop saying they would 'counsel' the woman through this difficult decision, when their policies and their votes and their Supreme Court justices would remove the actual decision from the process. I thought John McCain played into the worst memes regarding the pro-choice movement and women who have third trimester abortions when he suggested that "women's health" was an overused and false excuse exercised by the pro-choice movement.

Obama's friendly smile and reminder that an across the board freeze would limit the amount of money available for special needs education and funding.

Things I Would Have Liked To Have Seen:

I would have liked Obama to have hit at McCain and Sarah Palin a little harder. I do think that there is a point to be made about how Obama has to walk softly and appear more even keeled, that it has been working for him and to react in anger or even show too much emotion may hurt his chances of winning blue-collar white voters who are iffy on him due to his race. But when McCain started talking about Columbia and how Obama never visited that country, I so wanted Obama to shoot back that McCain's running mate just got her passport last year and apparently could see Russia from her house.

I'll leave it with this quote from Rachel Maddow on John McCain: "He looks like he doesn't want Barack Obama to be president than he looks like he wants to be president". Overall, I think John McCain is a good guy. My father made a point that McCain's temperament is similar to his own; that he gets agitated easily but is a good man. My contention is that there is a reason why my father should not be president. And McCain does seem to have the same inclination (though I would mention that my father tends to be less grumpy and has a nicer smile), and that isn't incredibly presidential. Obama does come off as presidential - and nothing like my father. I think McCain did a much better job this time around; I would put this one as a tie, though I myself was infinitely more persuaded by Obama. I like his positions better; I like his attack of the situation better. But I am a bleeding heart and a feminist. Of course, according to Keith Olbermann, most polls have the debate won by Obama. Then again, Olbermann is probably only slightly less liberal than I am.

Poor Tom Brokaw

Well, I think Barack Obama came off as cool and confident and on point tonight. Chris Matthews is right that he is blessed with an engaging and open and friendly smile. John McCain didn't come off too badly either. I think he is fundamentally wrong on a majority of the issues; but I don't think he was flailing or that he suffered a definitive loss. Unfortunately for his campaign, he didn't land a knock out punch either. And considering Obama's continued momentum in swing states and overall, McCain really needed something to turn this ship around. I do think Obama won; that being said, I don't think he had a knock out.

John McCain had some gaffes tonight; although it didn't bother me, there has been a big kerfuffle about McCain's pointing at Obama and saying "That one" in regard to voting on an energy bill put forth by Bush and Cheney and that contained perks ("goodies") for the oil companies. CBS brought it up and according to Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, it is one of the more pressing points in the spin room. Which kind of bothers me, because that is very much a cosmetic item. My biggest complaint is this idea that Big Government=bad, that Barack Obama=Big Government, that the roll of government should be to get out of people's ways - but that government should buy up all of the bad mortgages in order to shore up our economy. I'm not really entirely sure about that plan, but the plan itself is not the problem I have. The problem I have is the same problem (well, one out of many) I had with Sarah Palin in the VP debate; I find it completely disingenuous to paint Obama with a Big Government brush and claim to be the opposite, and then put forth the contrary idea that government should step in and have it be something other than Big Government. The total disconnect of the two sides of McCain's and Palin's argument strike me as being simply a political ploy to undermine Obama's stance on the issues as simply being a bureaucratic nightmare while simultaneously recognizing that telling voters they're on their own on a majority of these issues is not a way to win an election.

And with that, I will go on to a more cosmetic issue. McCain's constant phrases ("my friends", "thank you for that question") bothered me. It seemed rehearsed and too forced. McCain likes to consider himself a straight talker and that is more than acceptable; the problem I have is that I feel so much more condescended to when McCain speaks than when Obama does. Obama, and it seems strange to type this, has an odd bit of unforced folksy charm. Whereas Sarah Palin seems to suffer from "stage folksy charm", Obama's seems natural and completely real and simply a part of his personality. "Green behind the ears"... "High on the hog"... He even, at times, dropped his g's from the ends of words. And yet, it didn't seem like it was something he was doing in order to prove his normalcy, or as a way to connect to us "ordinary folk", those "Joe Six-Packs" and "Hockey Moms". Obama did at times take on a professorial role, and I personally liked it. It was balanced and measured, but not unemotional. It was calm and informative without being dictatorial. Obama has been, as Newsweek called him, Mr. Cool, and it served him well tonight.

There were some other aspects of the debate tonight that I cheered for and that I disliked. I practically jumped out of my seat when McCain referenced Theodore Roosevelt's "Talk softly and carry a big stick", and said that he was astounded that Barack Obama would say that he would attack another nation and how McCain himself would never telegraph his punches. I desperately wanted Obama to hit him with the "Bomb bomb bomb Iran" bit, and expected him not to. I was pleasantly surprised when Obama did reference that. I also loved Obama saying that the Straight Talk Express seemed to have lost a wheel. What I would have also enjoyed hearing, in response to McCain's criticism of sitting down with antagonistic governments without any preconditions, would be a historical context for such a move. Kennedy opened channels to talk to the Soviet Union; and although it did nothing to alleviate the Cold War it did provide an opportunity to better understand the Soviet Union and to negotiate with them during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Obama plainly stated that there was no guarantee that sitting down with rival nations would work, and there is no guarantee that it would. But it could; and even if it does not it allows us opportunities that we otherwise may not have had.

I also wonder, and this may stem into a separate post after further examining the issue, how well economic sanctions work against nations. Cuba has been subject to our economic sanctions for decades. Iraq had economic sanctions against it as well. And yet, leadership did not change in either of those two nations. And in some cases, possibly many cases, the economic sanctions did not hurt those at the top but rather adversely influenced those at the bottom. Do we really want to work at improving our image in the world by imposing economic sanctions instead of working on diplomatic solutions?

At the end of this, I have to say that I felt badly for Tom Brokaw. The man was clearly upset that the two candidates did not stick to the agreed debate format. I kind of liked his snarky comment about the lights the candidates could see being indicators for how much time they had to talk, as if neither one of them had ever been part of a formal debate before.

VP Debate: For Biden

I was kind of afraid Biden and the democrats were going to lose the expectations game; like Aaron Sorkin wrote about his fictional president debate, it really felt like the only way Biden was going to unequivocally win was if Sarah Palin "accidentally lights [her] podium on fire". Because "if the whole thing is [she] can't tie [her] shoes and it turns out [she] can', then that is the ball game" (Sorkin again!). Well, Sarah Palin can tie her shoes. She didn't light her podium on fire. She spoke in complete sentences, though I wish she'd dial back that "folksy charm", because it has turned into folksy charm on steroids - or a stage performance of folksy charm instead of the real thing. But I still think Biden did a wonderful job, and I would posit that he won the debate.

Sarah Palin was on, but she still annoyed me. It wasn't anything she could really help; but it is something that has bothered me in regard to other women politicians. And that is the need to be Tour Guide Barbie. She was incredibly smiley, incredibly saccharine. She showed more of a range of emotion than many women who step up to the podium. She was allowed to be serious and let that smile drop. But she also gave me pause when she talked about John McCain, the great reformer (for everything else John McCain is, "reform" isn't exactly a word that springs to mind when he's mentioned); and she gave me more pause when, after talking about how we needed regulation, she started the old republican talking point about how government is not the solution to our problems but the source of our problems. She was not surprisingly nonspecific, and she played to the idea of McCain the Maverick - something I was happy to see Joe Biden challenge her on. There was something else that bothered me tonight about Palin, and that was her insistence of including oil and oil drilling in with alternative energy. I could be wrong, but I always thought alternative energy meant energy derived from things other than fossil fuels.

There were times when she did well, I won't deny her that. I almost feel sorry for her, having to defend a candidate who, like Biden hammered home, just 2 weeks ago said the fundamentals of our economy are strong, and who has in the past admitted to not knowing much about the economy. I felt for her when she substituted McClellan for McKiernan. I felt for her because it was an obvious screw up that had no bearing on whether or not she knew what she was talking about. It was kind of like Joe Biden's earlier remark (a remark he quickly corrected) about a six month timetable for leaving Iraq. Joe caught his mistake mid-sentence; Palin did not have that luck. And that was too bad for her, because those actual little gaffes are to be expected and the fact that mix up will (and has already) gotten some attention is unfortunate. There was a moment, and I really wish I could remember it now and what was said, when I thought she hit it straight out of the ballpark. Of course, then she repeated this:

In a few weeks, you'll have the choice of voting for a ticket that wants to create jobs, and bolster the economy and win the war...

I desperately wanted some pithy remark from Biden like, "So you'll be voting for us then?" Because Sarah Palin didn't explain John McCain's position on taxes very well. She didn't explain how her camp planned on bolstering the economy. She had nothing to come back with when Biden said that most small business owners actually make less than 250 thousand dollars a year in income and so Obama's tax plan wouldn't affect them. And I thought Joe Biden did a better job on the war in Iraq and our timetable for leaving than she did. When she told him that he was "waving a white flag of defeat", I sat up straight. I was kind of relieved to see that response garner an immediate drop in approval from CBS' instant independent poll people. The ticket Sarah Palin described in the quote above was, to me, the Obama campaign (I think the first one of those repeats had a mention of tax cuts as well).

The only real issue I had, and I'll probably come back to it at some later time, was that one of the independent women voters interviewed afterward who said Sarah Palin did well said that she thought so because Sarah Palin was like an ordinary person. That Palin made the woman being interviewed feel like she could have been up there on that stage. I froze. If there is one argument I cannot stand, it is the "She makes me feel like she's just a regular person, like me!" way of voting. I don't really want my candidates to reflect me. I don't want them to make me feel that I could be up there behind that podium. There is a reason they are behind that podium and why I am sitting on my couch watching them. They are supposed to be smarter than I am, more aware of the issues than I am, and more capable than I am. I am not qualified to be vice-president, even if it is the John Nance Garner "not worth a pitcher of warm piss" type vice-presidency. So I would really prefer it if my candidate gave me the feeling like s/he understood me and where I stood on the issues, but was more qualified and more capable of smartly deciding how to implement the necessary changes on those issues. I had hoped we were over the "like me" way of voting -at least in this sense- after 8 years of President Bush. But I guess I was wrong.

Overall, Palin's performance had little to do with Joe Biden's performance; I loved his pithy "bridge to nowhere" comment. I enjoyed his references to the pieces of legislation he had passed. Pat Buchanan may not like the facts and statistics way of Biden's style (as he said tonight on MSNBC), but I thought his specific examples of his own legislation and positions and the counts of how many times McCain voted on policies contrary to what would help the American people (and how McCain voted against the same legislation meant to fund the troops as Obama did) offered a stark contrast to Palin's lack of specifics. It made him seem more aware and more knowledgeable and more on top of things than Palin was. But perhaps my favorite moment was when Biden said that Dick Cheney's vice-presidency has been the most destructive we've ever had, and his belief that the vice-presidency somehow is a part of the legislature is "bizarre". It has been too long since I've heard the word "bizarre" come out of anyone's mouth in a serious moment. I loved how he gave specific mention of what the vice-president's duties were as dictated by the constitution. I suppose it may be hypocritical of me to enjoy the Democrats' strict interpretation of the Constitution when their usual role is to defend its position as a 'living' and changing document when I am so appalled at the Republicans' recent insistence on enjoying the latitude the Constitution offers the position of the vice-presidency and thus using a less than strict interpretation of the document when conservatives are usually about strict interpretations. When Palin said that she saw the vice-president as being able to take an active role in the Senate, I almost wanted someone to make her sit down and watch HBO's John Adams -not all of the hours, of course; just the ones in which he was ridiculed for expanding his powers of the vice-presidency too far in that regard.

But for me, the most emotional moment of the night, and the moment in which I thought Joe Biden really succeeded in removing the air from Sarah Palin's populist lungs was when he choked up discussing the deaths of his wife and daughter.

In that moment, I don't know how one person watching could not be moved, and could not believe that Joe Biden actually did know about their own fears and trials and tragedies, that he could relate to them on more than just a superficial "We're not those East Coast political people" level. It was the most moving moment of the night, because it was the most sincere. The problem with Sarah Palin's "oh shucks, I'm just an ordinary hockey mom and I am so much more like you than that guy" is that it seems like a glossy veneer, that what connects Palin to those people is more about superficial notions of the "working class" and what they are like and the prejudices they have against those who are educated and those who rattle off numbers and those who - Heaven forbid - actually had ambitions in running for office. But those similarities only skim the surface; and although she said she and McCain are interested in breaking down partisan politics, that tactic is about conflating the unimportant differences between people into a very attack on identity. What Joe Biden did there was to allow for the humanity of the moment to reach across party lines and to truly demonstrate that maybe being a Senator for 36 years does not distance a man from the rigors of every day life. That maybe getting an elite education at one of the top universities in the country does not in actuality make a person an elitist. That maybe, the test for whether or not a person is like someone else should not be confused with whether or not that person talks in the same manner or buys the same style clothing or if they grew up in a small town but the ideas and thoughts and feelings that person carries.

Biden won. Palin did well; she didn't light the podium on fire, she can tie her shoes, she didn't fall off of the stage, and she spoke in complete and cogent sentences. She was greatly helped by the specter of low expectation. Even with all of that, Biden still won.

How Democrats Lose Elections (Pt 2)

For once, I agree with Andrew Sullivan entirely. I don't know what the Democrats are playing at, but I want to know where all the nefarious Democrats went -you know, the ones that used to rig elections and would fight dirty. Where did those people go?! I want them back, and I want them back right now. I want someone to stand up and say exactly what Sullivan said:

We are now rigging the debate formats to compensate for a know-nothing, mendacious Manchurian candidate drilled in meaningly talking points? And the Obama team agreed to this?

He gets extra points for the alliteration. Because this (via the New York Times):

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive

could only be a good thing for Democrats! Maybe I'm doing it wrong; but when I fight, I tend to want my opponent to be on the defensive as much as humanly possible. I don't want to go to any length to compensate for my opponent's weaknesses! If Palin is that inexperienced of a debater that she needed the format changed, then there is no way she should be on the national ticket. It is that simple. And by capitulating and creating a format that may work better for her, the Dems have completely ignored the fact that this is where they could have hit Republicans so that it hurt.

Unless they know something that I don't; like some crazy winning strategy that makes it so even if Palin wins in these specially crafted debates, she loses. But given the state of the Democratic party since friggin' Carter, and given the state of the American public and how many of them will probably recognize a change in format (or if they are aware, how many will know it was for Palin's benefit), I'm going to say that may backfire. Horribly.

Once again, an election is the Democrats' to lose. Go get 'em, boys.