Acid, Humor & Endorsement

The last presidential debate was indeed unlike the previous ones. It is as difficult to assess. I agree with the view that for the first 30 minutes McCain had the upper hand, which came as an all too big of a surprise to Obama. Yet my surprise at Obama’s weakness in the first 30 minutes was nothing to what happened with McCain for the rest of the debate. His face expressions of bizarre derision and difficult-to-restrain anger made this debate a gold mine for spin doctors analyzing the behavior of candidates in these elections. Yet that is the extent of its positive influence. Obama did not win because he was good, but because McCain played a risky game of ACORN/Bill Ayers accusations, which frankly, I don’t think interest many voters. Those who think he’s a terrorist will still think he is a terrorist, and these who don’t want to believe what the other side says won’t anyway. This debate was not Obama’s clear victory. As a viewer I could see his eloquence and intellect, but the fact that both candidates were sitting during the debate, oddly enough, I think made Obama even more professorial and accounted for a certain disadvantage. It is Obama “in motion” performance that serves him best.

A nice break from all the election conflict was undoubtedly the Al Smith Foundation’s charity in which both McCain and Obama had to come up with humorous speeches. They were both successful, McCain perhaps a little bit funnier than Obama, but both of them did a good job, well, as good as an adult man aspiring to the highest office on a long campaign drawing to its end can do. I recommend watching these, especially if you haven’t seen a lot of laughter from the candidates thus far. Yes, they can laugh pretty hard. Here is McCain’s speech and here is Obama’s.

There has been some speculation lately that Colin Powell, the “lion of the Republican establishment”, might announce his endorsement of Barack Obama, yes, the Democratic candidate. Apparently, we will know by this Sunday. The political ramifications of this can surely shake foundations of this election.  Being a centrist and still pretty popular individual (if compared to other Bush government officials), yet also a representative of the military “elite” under three presidents, he might just be Obama’s Trojan Horse in getting the votes of the moderates. Nevertheless, it might also do the exact opposite, and alienate moderates from Obama who don’t know much of Powell’s negative opinion about the more conservative elements of his party. His possible support of McCain can also help the Republican ticket but surely not to such a degree as in the former case.

So what do you think, tell me in the poll below.

The AmeriCain Variance

There are a few things I want to touch on today. First, the debate. Result? As often as I like to criticize both candidates, this time I must say Obama impressed me with his eloquence, which I think was even higher than usual. McCain, one could sense, often times resorted to humor which gave an odd impression of nervousness rather than calmness. The questions were much better than in the first debate, however, again neither candidate really addressed them specifically, but rather lost the audience in a flow of rosy verbiage. Nevertheless, I must say Obama won this one (I think we’ve all grown to admit that the candidates rarely answer questions anyway, regardless of party) due not only to his oratory skills but also to his impressive self control. After McCain questioned his judgement and understanding, he simply gave one sharp response and did not pursue to embarrass or intimidate the Republican pick more, but quickly came to the other matters at hand.

Recent polls show Obama’s clear lead in the polls.

Barack Obama leads John McCain by 46 percent to 39 percent, according to a FOX News national registered voter poll released Friday. Two weeks ago Obama led by 45 percent to 39 percent (Sept. 22-23).

And that is a FOX News poll. I have been getting statements that my first real entry on this blog about the inevitable defeat of Obama now turns out to be a false projection. It is true I have (like most observers) not foreseen the economic calamity because at that moment in time it was simply recession. Undoubtedly, an opposition party gains while the party in power loses support in time of a moribund economic reality. However, there is still a lot of time to the election and anything can happen.

Anything? How about martial law introduced on election day by Bush to cancel the elections and organize a country-wide curfew? Some believe it may be so.

A lot of conspiracy theorists recently like to talk about the National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51). The NSPD-51 allows the president to do pretty much anything in case of a “catastrophic emergency” in order for the “continuity of government” to happen. It is said Bush will invoke this directive to counter panic of the economic crisis before the elections or, in case Obama loses, after the elections to stop the “inevitable mass riots” all across America. Accordingly, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) already prepared plastic coffins in order to be ready for the “mass casualties”.

I am a big skeptic when it comes to conspiracy theories and there are so many things to comment on the aforementioned case that I will not even attempt to list them, but one thing is sure: this election is important and it is going to get more and more intense, with possibly “any” scenario taking place.

McCain’s fall in the polls has caused his campaign to adopt a different strategy. While Palin’s attacks become more and more “dirty”, McCain tries to distant himself from all of it even at the cost of booing from his own supporters, as you can see here.

If McCain really speaks what he thinks then he has just gained a great deal of respect in my eyes. Yet this might as well be another high-risk strategy aimed at independents and perhaps even disgruntled Democrats.

Obama attacked McCain personally publishing the Keating Economics video, which you can look up. The video explains McCain’s ties to Charles Keating, the main persona of a very convoluted 1989 Keating Five corruption scandal. Personally, I don’t think Obama campaign’s accusations are true. The people interviewed in the video already sued the Democraic campaign for “being led” to answer in specific ways. But that is not the reason why I don’t believe it. I just don’t think any sane individual would run for election of the highest office in the country having played a clandestine role in a really shocking scandal (this scandal implies parallels to the subprime mortgage crisis of today) and subsequently lying about it in Congress (McCain is directly involved in it no doubt, but it is the extent of his involvement that is the issue). It is obvious for any candidate that the media will dig up any, even the most benign, inconsistency in the candidate’s life, and John McCain understands that. So, in a way, my refusal to believe the Obama campaign comes not from the actual accusations but rather from the logic of publishing such a video just now and from the assumption McCain is not delusional. It might be my naïveté, but I am always skeptical towards any revelations dug up for the purpose of winning elections.

“Maverick He Is Not”

It is said that 70 million people watched the debate. This one memorable phrase is the high point of the entire debate, and probably we are going to hear references to it until election day. Who won the debate? Yet again, both parties claimed victory. In my opinion, there was no clear winner, with Biden going a bit ahead in the presentation part. I think both candidates exceeded expectations in any case.

Biden did not make any blunders and he was prepared to present the Obama platform well. Commentators point out his condescending smile, but really, his few broad smiles were nothing in this debate compared to face expressions of Palin who also had her own smirk when Biden was talking. Any questions of sexism here are unfounded and, in any case, it was Palin who tried to look more “know-it-all” than him.

People who believe Palin won are not wrong, yet there is an important underlying matter here that has to be pointed out. Palin exceeded expectations beyond measure and you could see she got a few good lessons in FP and in pronouncing the names of foreign leaders, and I think in that way she was better.  Nevertheless, Biden was in the position of superiority before that, he did not activate his mental steamroller and was more reserved than Palin, but as a more experienced politician he did not have to go to such lengths to prove himself better. That is why even though Biden, I think, won the debate, it was Palin who was better in the light of expetations set for her. Certainly, people wanted to see a reprise of the Couric interview, which I attach here along with a more-strong-than-usual Cafferty comment, in case you have not seen it yet.

Palin’s appeal to independents was notorious throughout the debate, as she juggled words like “tolerance”, “equal rights” or “woman’s rights”. Even the “definition of marriage” thing she handled pretty well for a Republican, not to alienate too many voters. Biden, besides creating the Maverick phrase, also created probably the most intense single second of the debate when he choked up while telling how it is being a single dad, a moment probably immensly adding to his appeal with the, informally speaking, effect of “aww”.

The repetition of the “preconditions (for meeting leaders of Iran, etc.) issue” was simply dull and not necessary, as we had to listen to alot of it during the previous debate. Palin, notedly, called herself a maverick as well. Biden used his usual third person spiel. Both of them employed a range of interesting statistics, yet their effect most likely confused many viewers trying to reason who is right. In any case, the finale of the debate again belonged to Biden who literally “stole” the chieftly Republican “blessing the troops” thing, yet being the last in any debate often allows that person to exploit the things omitted by the former speaker.

Bears in Montana, Miss Congeniality & Three Inch Taller South Koreans

Well, the first debate is history. Initial reactions? Contrary to many news agencies I found the debate very dull and predictable. Both candidates said what they wanted to say (did anyone else realize the sheer number of instances in which the senators used the exact same phrases and statements took from the campaign trail?), attacked each other, then refuted what the attacker has just said, and so on ad infinitum. As a result, a common citizen who does not follow the campaign closely might not have seen many major differences between them. The issue on starting the war in Iraq was just pointless and bizarre. Not many people are interested who voted for what or what should/could have been done, but rather what can be done now. Luckily, later they switched to a more present day approach. Jim Lehrer had to ask 3 times the same question about the bailout to get any coherent answer from either candidate, in the end not looking satisfied anyway. There was alot of fake smiles and condescending animosity (Obama addressed McCain as John many times, but I do not remember McCain saying Barack, an interesting point, but I might have missed an instance of the contrary). On a good note, the debate was very useful to people who are just tuning into the race and want to know what the candidates think and not want to spend more than hour and a half on it.

Who won? Some say it was a tie, some it was Obama. I think Obama won, but not by a lot. McCain had strong offense, though his defense could use some polishing. Obama kept his style and remained calm, which served him well. I await to see the post-debate polls.

On a similar note, I am involved in a joint project called The Moderometer (now available at http://themoderometer.blogspot.com/, but soon to be at http://www.moderometer.com/). We take what the candidates say and then allocate a percentage depending on how “moderate” is the statement. I welcome you to check on that, and as we progress I will mention major updates on this blog.

The real thing everyone is waiting for is coming with the next debate: the Palin vs. Biden showdown. I am looking forward to reading someone’s post with the drinking game rules for that debate.