Presidential Debate 2: The Town Hall
Filed Under: 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, John McCain, Tom Brokaw
We’ll be live blogging here tonight beginning at 9:00 PM Eastern Time. If we have difficulties with the CoverItLive.com tool again, we will revert to using comments instead. We look forward to your input!
Update: Once again, CoverItLive has failed us. Please click to the comments page for this post to follow the live blogging, and feel free to participate!
The debate is complete, we’re done blogging for the evening! Read the comments if you’re interested in our thoughts!
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Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:11 pm | Reply
First question on the economy (as expected) and I don’t think we heard anything new. Obama wants to rob from the rich and give to everyone that votes for him. McCain wants to cut spending and taxes and work on debt adjustments for the drop in home values.
Warren Buffet for Treasury Secretary. I wonder if he likes that idea?
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:12 pm | Reply
Here’s where I differ with McCain, although I understand where he’s coming from. This is a bailout. Lipstick, you know.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:13 pm | Reply
Awesome… McCain hits the whole Congressional conspiracy to support Fannie and Freddie when they were clearly falling apart years ago.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:16 pm | Reply
And Obama helps us understand why companies need credit. He hits on the core of the commercial paper prop up announced today.
Then he is trying to make his feeble attempts to look like the whistle-blower that no one listened to.
Ohhhh… Obama says he never supported Fannie Mae. Nice baloney.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:17 pm | Reply
BO says the economy won’t get worse before it gets better! Yeah!!!
Idiot.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:18 pm | Reply
McCain is more careful on the question. Interesting that both the candidates said one important same thing: we need to address the corruption in Washington. BO is playing catchup here.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:21 pm | Reply
BO empathizing. Then trying to answer the question of how to trust either party by blaming George Bush. But DOES say that blame can go all around. So his answer is, “because”.
WHAT? BO wants spending cuts??? I can’t wait to see the books for that one… probably not legit.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:22 pm | Reply
McCain lays out his record of reform and bipartisan work.
Good work pointing to the big watchdog organizations. That will both play well and probably highlight the very case he is trying to make about his record compared to BO’s.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:28 pm | Reply
How do we prioritize Health Care, Entitlements, Energy? McCain says do them all at once. Not too bad. I think 1) Energy, 2) Entitlements (fix them), and 3) Health Care.
BO says: 1) Energy (and describes it?… he’s gonna run outta time here). 2) Health Care (he says broken) 3) Education (one of the entitlements)
BO has pretty good comments on redlining bad programs. But wants to strip companies bare.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:33 pm | Reply
What sacrifices should we make?
McCain: many programs/projects… Defense spending. That’s gotta be a surprise to some.
BO: 9/11… criticizing Bush for telling people to go out and shop. Does he not remember the impact that we were having on the economy? That the point of the attack was to cripple our economy? Just a stupid attack to position himself to say that maybe we don’t need to buy everything we want… not good to say in current economy I think.
Pushing incentives. I despise incentives. One good thing is talking about volunteer opportunities. That is a good answer.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:37 pm | Reply
Again, BO wants to take money away from CEOs. When you say “somebody is not sharing the burden”, pointing to those that have worked hard to earn more money, that is the prelude to communism.
McCain does not want tax increases for the rich, but tax cuts for all.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:37 pm | Reply
BO wants to break the rules! What a surprise!!!
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:42 pm | Reply
Fix Social Security and Medicare? Return Social Security to the program it was intended to be, not a retirement account for all!
BO quickly runs over the question to get to what he wants to say: he wants a tax cut for the bottom 95% of all taxpayers. For those making less than $250,000 a year. What he just doesn’t get is that this will NOT provide jobs for those people, because the people who create the jobs will get taxed too hard.
McCain wants to answer the actual question. Agrees to move to fixing both SS and Medicare. Still follows with answer to BO’s tax commentary.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:43 pm | Reply
Brokaw just wants to keep poking at the overages of time on both candidates’ parts.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:48 pm | Reply
On the “green” issue, separates himself from Bush and aligns with the left. But, has some good comments on the use of Nuclear Power to help provide a cleaner energy source. I do get tired of the litany of “alternative energies” that we have been listening to for years but still don’t have real solutions for.
Obama wants to create 5 million new jobs with a new energy economy. “Government invented computers? Not so much.” Then the “He voted against xx times” crap. That’s gotta stop. We’re not STUPID! We know how bills work and that one item on a big bill does not a position make!!!
Evidently the moderator is not allowed to interrupt the candidates, but they keep going way over time.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:55 pm | Reply
Health care: should it be a commodity?
BO: Proposal will provide the same plan as government employees get. Sounds like the answer is “no”, but not really answered.
JM: Explains his plan, and essentially says “yes” to the question. Give people choice instead of mandates.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 8:59 pm | Reply
Is Health Care a right, responsibility or privilege?
JM: Responsibility. Points out the “fine” in BO’s program for parents who don’t provide their children health care. Amount undefined.
BO: A right (that means entitlement, that means socialist/communist mentality). Restates why parents must provide their children health care.
Oooooh… Brokaw tries to interrupt BO. Didn’t work.
Didn’t find out the amount of the fine.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 9:03 pm | Reply
Does America’s economic issues impact our ability to continue being the leaders, peacekeepers of the world?
JM: Yes, it can. Mostly from a credibility standpoint, and goes on to talk about decisions to act, including genocide and other situations where our goodness is needed to help others. Then jumps on the issue of BO’s position on the Iraq war.
BO: Takes the conversation down the Iraq War issue, and about the cost it has created for us. I’m tired of this discussion, we’re not going to hear anything new from either side on this.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 9:08 pm | Reply
Obama Doctrine: Genocide, ethnic cleansing requires serious consideration of intervention. BUT we cannot solve all cruelty. Suggests we could provide support in Darfur.
McCain Doctrine: (not answering the question right away… blah, blah, blah… I agree with JM, but move on) We must do whatever we can to prevent genocide, tempered with our understanding of our ability to make a difference. Covers situation where we tried and failed.
Both shared good position, but McCain shows his experience with greater eloquence.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 9:16 pm | Reply
Pakistani sovereignty.
BO: Same story we’ve been hearing about changing our policy with Pakistan, pressuring them to do the work we need done, and if they won’t take out bin Laden, we should go ahead and do it.
JM: We need to work with Pakistan, side by side, to reach our objectives.
BO wants follow up. And he continues to say that going into Pakistan without permission to take out bin Laden is somehow NOT attacking Pakistan. This ONE ISSUE should be enough to convince people that Obama is wrong for America.
Brokaw gives JM follow up BO took some. JM will act responsibly.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 9:19 pm | Reply
What do we do about Afghanistan strategy?
BO: pull troops out of Iraq as quickly as possible and move them to Afghanistan. I think that could be called a “surge” (sort of). And then says something that sounds like we need to replace the leadership in Afghanistan. Really? Should we keep doing that?
JM: Build up in Afghanistan, and work with Afghan and Pakistani governments to work toward reduction of Taliban impact and get bin Laden.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 9:23 pm | Reply
21st century Cold War?
JM sees some of the old vestiges of the Russian KGB and other Cold War tactics. Recommends pressuring Russia politically.
BO calls this the “resurgence of Russia”. Wants to provide moral support to all surrounding nations (makes sense to me, as long as we are committed to supporting their potential resistance to attack with real action). Wandered off into talking about Afghanistan, then came back to energy influence in the issue.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 9:24 pm | Reply
Is Russia the “evil empire”? Yes or no?
BO: Can be. Brief explanation.
JM: Maybe. Explains how future actions may influence this.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 9:30 pm | Reply
If Iran attacks Israel, will you immediately commit troops without waiting for the UN?
JM: We would NOT wait for the UN Security Council to act, and Russia and China would likely block action. Then goes into the issue of Iran getting nukes, talking about Obama will talk without preconditions to Iran’s leader (blah, blah, blah… nothing new here). Then says “We can never allow another Holocaust to occur.”
BO: Says military options always on the table, we cannot let the UN veto our ability to act, but we need to do everything we can to prevent the situation from happening in the first place… talks about options to pressure Iran to reconsider their current direction. Presses the need to get with enemy leaders to push them hard.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 9:37 pm | Reply
What don’t you know, and what will you do to learn it?
BO: Talks about his life, growing up with needs, and the ability to get to quality education and success despite that.
JM: “What the unexpected will be”. He knows what it’s like to go through tough times, to depend on others, to dig in and work hard to survive and succeed.
The answers these two gave to this one question really accentuated the core differences between the two candidates and parties. It is this: in seeking to reach the American Dream, the Left wants to provide the Dream itself as a right, and the Right wants to create an environment where the Dream could be achieved through opportunities created for all. Frankly, it should not be hard to see that the Dream of the Left is, as an entitlement, constrained (one size fits most), while for the Right, it is unconstrained and can be as high and wide as one can find it.
Art Smith | Oct 7, 2008 at 9:44 pm | Reply
Overall a good, tame, even handed debate. Nothing dramatically new. Who wins is really a matter of your political position in my opinion.
For the uncommitted, it’s becoming for some a matter of form… CBS interviewed a few uncommitted voters, one of whom said he is now committed to Obama because he felt Obama presented himself well.
Couric pressed the question of how the group took the comment that McCain made about the 2005 bill that provided extra money for oil companies, and the fact that Obama voted for it and he voted against it. The group seemed to feel the way the comment was present by McCain was disrespectful. At Couric’s prompting, that is.
Have a good night!