Debate #1: McCain Via Split Decision

There are plenty of other post-game analyses to choose from, if you wish to dig into more of the detail.  And yes, I did watch the debate, and was barraging Ed Morrissey with comments throughout, only two of which made it on the live blog.  No complaints, since he did warn everybody in advance that that would be the case.

The domestic policy goodie bag is Obama's turf, and he put over his laundry list, including his risible attempt to pass off stealing billions from Big Oil and spraying rebate checks all over the friuted plain as a "tax cut," well.  But McCain also succeeded in "drilling" his emphasis upon reining in federal spending and the growth of government, and made effective cases for domestic energy exploration and the need for corporate tax cuts by pointing out that our high corporate tax rates are precisely what results in American jobs getting shipped overseas (just call it "the luck of the Irish").  Sailor also scored points when moderator Jim Lehrer asked both men if they'd be willing to forego other discretionary domestic spending to help offset the enormous cost of a Wall Street b[uy]out and he suggested a non-defense/non-veterans spending freeze, and Barry just went "humina, humina, humina."

On foreign policy, fugheddaboudit.  McCain was speaking from long experience, not notes.  Clearly he didn't need to prep himself on this wide ranging topic, because he's LIVED it.  Whereas Lucifer might as well have had a little stack of 3x5 index cards sitting in front of him.  Or a teleprompter.  His FP answers were an inch deep, and got all the shallower the longer he rambled through his hard-left/defeatist/appeasnik talking points.

Case in point was when B.O. tried to trump Maverick by claiming that not only has the Bush Administration aped his "unconditional direct presidential groveling in Tehran" position, but one of his own FP advisors, none other than Henry Kissinger himself, has said the same thing.  McCain gently but firmly replied that he's known Kissinger for thirty-five years (and Barry hasn't) and he never said any such thing.

Guess who was right:

Henry Kissinger believes Barack Obama misstated his views on diplomacy with US adversaries and is not happy about being mischaracterized. He says: “Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.”

McCain pointed out that quitting Iraq on the edge of victory would adversely impact Afghanistan and the whole region, on the latter of which Obama tried to emphasize his faux hawkishness.  When the latter touted cross-Pakistani-border attacks against al Qaeda and the Taliban, McCain pointed out that "You don't come out and SAY that" - as in publicly and in advance.  McCain pointed out that for all of Barry's purported concern about Afghanistan and Pakistan, he never once held a hearing about either on the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee he chairs, nor ever once went there until his Ego Trip back in July.  McCain pointed out that he recognized Vladimir Putin for what he is - "K...G...B" - years ago, while Obama tried to put over the laughable notion that he would support bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO when that would mean committing the United States to war with Russia if they attacked either (in Georgia's case, AGAIN), a proposition nobody in their right mind can believe The One would ever honor.

McCain spoke at great length about the entire foreign policy/national security gamut, with the nuance and depth that only comes from experience.  Obama had his bullet points.  It was not only no contest, it was almost embarrassing to watch.

BUT...it was also McCain's home turf, and he was EXPECTED to school the Chicago Cherubim in this area.  And in any case, that's not what presidential debates are really about.

They are, rather, a chance for voters to gauge and evaluate the two candidates side-by-side, not so much in terms of what they say, but in how they act and carry themselves.  It isn't the technical scorecard that alters the course of a campaign, but those moments that stick out in the minds of viewers: Gerald Ford referring to Poland as being "outside the Warsaw Pact"; Ronald Reagan looking over at Jimmy Carter and drawling, "There you go again!"; Michael Dukakis clinically answering the question from Bernard Shaw about how he'd react if one of his prison furlough-ees raped and murdered his wife Kitty; Bush41 checking his watch at the 1992 town hall-style debate; Al Gore's rude sighing and attempt to physically intimidate Bush43; John Kerry outting Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter.

Jim Geraghty thinks Obama may have committed one of those "real moment" gaffes with his attempted "bracelet trump":

At one and the same time, False Messiah said, "Hey, I've got a bracelet TOO!!!" and conceded how little of an emotional impact it made on him when he had to actually stop and look at the damn thing to remember the name of the soldier whose mother had given it to him.  It's a wonder he ever remembered to bring it to the debate with him.

That was the most egregious example of the pattern that quickly established it self throughout the ninety minute encounter of McCain speaking confidently and authoritatively, in complete command of the situation and the material, and Obama trying to keep up with him and even one-up him.  The latter's two most repeated phrases were, "First of all, let me clarify a few things" and "John is right."  Barry was on the defensive for pretty much the whole night, and it must have grated on his towering ego given how snappish and flustered he grew towards the end.  His tendency to "uh," which he'd kept under control, briefly resurfaced at the finish.

Scoring the debate technically, I'd call the economic third a draw and the foreign policy two-thirds a McCain blowout.  Scoring it in public relations terms, I'd give McCain a solid, if not overwhelming, victory.

Scoring it strategically, though, by which I mean what McCain needed to turn around the collapse his campaign has experienced over the past few days, I have to say that Obama was the big winner.

It is my concerted belief that the failure of John Sith McCain to get out in front of this financial "crisis" from day one and define it truthfully as the result of Democrat policies and Democrat obstruction of Republican - and especially McCain's own - attempts to repeal those policies and restore sanity to the mortgage lending business; followed by his getting suckered by Treasury Secretary and Donk mole Hank Paulson and the Democrats into flushing his "I can get things done" prestige down the more-than-proverbial commode by suspending his campaign, parachuting into the Capitol to save the day, and getting sabotaged BY HIS OPPONENT, and then getting blamed BY the Dems for said sabotage, has fatally wounded his candidacy.

This debate was going to include questions about the Wall Street Meltdown.  It was IMPERATIVE that McCain talk about the Community Reinvestment Program that the Dems amended to force mortgage lenders to write high-risk loans that would never be repaid; congressional mandates that turned this bad paper into "mortgage backed securities" and directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to sell them, thus entangling Wall Street's finances and the entire investor class's retirement nest eggs in this rickety web; and Democrat obstruction of Republican attempts to INCREASE regulation of this runaway gravy train.

But that answer never came.  All we got was more stale populist "me-too"-ing of Donk "Wall Street greed" rhetoric, and no challenge whatsoever of Barry's stock answer of this mess being the result of "unregulated" free market capitalism, and the fault of George W. Bush and....John McCain.

The Wall Street Meltdown is what has crippled McCain's candidacy.  That's the issue on which he had to start fighting back.  This debate was his last, best chance to do so.  He punted instead.

Unless there's another foreign crisis, or major pre-election terrorist attack, I think the die is now cast.  The remaining debates no longer matter.  Sarah Palin no longer matters.  All that matters is the economy and the financial situation.  John McCain has blown that, and the election along with it.