I can see the recent suggestion by McCain that the debates and campaigning be put on hold while they deal with the bill as very interesting and very clever. I can’t see how Obama can disagree without looking like he considers his own career mroe important than the country. On the other hand, Obama is a great debater and it’s possible McCain is taking advantage of the mess to wriggle out of the debate.
What do you think? how will this play out in the next week?
Obama’s answer: “I believe a president should be able to do more than one thing at a time.” He’s right, too.
What better topic for debate than a $700,000,000,000 fiasco? Just have the two of them on stage, no advisers, and just talk about what they would do about the current mess. That would require changing the topic from foreign policy to economics/domestic policy, but I think that this market meltdown (-45% GDP? It’s more likely than you’d think! 
is a huge event.
They’re both playing to their strengths. McCain is known for being willing to do unpopular stuff when he feels it right, not a campaigner; and Obama is known as great campaigner, not a legislator.
I’m in the minority, but I think Obama looks worse for this. The only debate that matters is the one happening right now in the Senate. As a sitting Senator, he should be part of it. The TV debate is just popcorn spectacle anyway and doesn’t mean a thing (proof positive: Who can remember any lines from previous debates other than the witty sound bites?).
btw…I’m still not voting at all. Now more than ever.
yet surely if a massive issue like this will be debated by the two candidates for presidency, then it needs to be on TV in front of all 250 million Americans, not in some room without TV cameras. I heard on the radio about one guy getting down on his knees and begging in this meeting. This is serious big-deal stuff, and the American people should be able to judge their leader for the next 4 years based on what they have to say about it surely?
I still think the debate should go ahead, but I can see why people might think not. It’s a tough call.
C-Span covers the floor of Congress. Anybody who wants to follow that debate could do so, but nobody wants to because its not a spectacle thing. It’s dry policy stuff that folks lose interest in quickly.
As for Secretary Paulson getting on his knees and begging, I’ve heard that as well, but I’ve also heard umpteen equally shocking things that turn out to be absolute pigs**t (Obama is a Muslim, Palin believes dinosaurs died out 4,000 years ago, etc.). Until I see it with my own eyes or hear confirmation from Paulson’s own lips, there’s no reason to believe this isn’t more garbage sensationalism.
Besides, after a spokeswoman for Paulson told Forbes.com that the $700 billion figure was just pulled out of thin air*, I can almost believe that Paulson would be that lost and clueless as to get on his knees and beg.
forbes.com/home/2008/09/23/b … ilout.html
The relevant quote is about halfway down.
So how do people think the debate went? I only heard clips (i’m in the UK), vut I was surprised that obama didn’t sound more articulate. he is supposed to be the amazing orator. maybe that works better for speeches than unscripted debates?
It was pretty unremarkable. I wasn’t surprised that Obama wasn’t at his most articulate, for the very reason you mention: He’s only like that with pre-scripted stuff. So it’s not a big strike against him. As for McCain, he did fine, and I noticed that he was very good with history, current events, and the associated names.
But ultimately, neither of them said anything useful. They both gave plenty of half-truths and a few bits of pure fiction, and no new ideas or specific policy prescriptions at all.
So the debate likely didn’t change anybody’s mind.
How does Obama plan to get us out of the democrat eco crisis by costing US jobs? By raising taxes on businesses, Obama will cause some companies to move overseas and others to cut jobs. With far fewer jobs in the country and more unemployment, there will be less money going to the treasury and an even bigger deficit after Obama increases gov’t spending. Except in government, there will not be growth just decline.
A lot of Statists and Elitists don’t know or care to know how wealth is created. The government can’t create wealth, but it does a fantastic job of destroying it. Remember, “don’t let a good crisis go to waste.” They’ve used this economic crisis to try and make leaps in pushing their left-wing agenda. When their “so-called stimulus” makes things worse, they’ll try to make a move on that as well.
I keep mentioning it, but public opinion is definitely against them on these issues, yet Hussein’s approval numbers still remain so high (they are slipping quite a bit now). Approval on Congress is very low, as it has been for a while now, yet they act as if they have the full support of the people. In a way they do, since we are the ones who elect or re-elect them.
I’m curious; are you really comparing him to Saddam, or is there some other legitimate basis for referring to him as such? Because when I hear people calling attention to his middle name, I have a hard time seeing it as anything other than an attempt to stir up bigoted antipathy.
This latest global economic crisis is different from the ones we had in the last couple of decades. The corporate sector, or to be more specific the finance sector has been overflowing with capital, and have been so keen in their desire to maximise profits that they have lent money to people who did not have the means to repay these loans. In the last couple decades the exact opposite has always occurred everytime a global recession hit. Demand exceeded supply, this caused inflation to occur as ever increasing dollars were chasing a dwindling supply of inputs and outputs like goods and labour. This time around the recession has been caused because supply has exceeded demand. Corporate inventories of finished goods have been overflowing but demand has collapsed. This is why governments all round the world have instituted fiscal stimulus programmes. In previous recessions inventories of finished goods have always been depleted, due to demand exceeding supply, and this is why this time around inflation has not increased.
The current economic mess is going to takes years to repair. We went from cutting 700,000 jobs to a little over 200,000. Still a lot of jobs, but a huge decline. The stock market is up, mainly from the government pushing a lot of money into it, and steady increases in sales for companies the last few months. We cannot compare this year to last year because things are just so different now.
Obama is trying to build a future, while keeping things steady and not crashing everything.
No matter who was President, they would have possibly the worst job, at least for these 4 years.
The first year was going to be a disaster no matter what happens.
Year two is their policies taking effect, and seeing if their is a light beginning to show.
Year three indicates if we need to make changes, or continue on the path we are on.
Year four showcases whether their Presidency is a success or a failure, and whether they should be re-elected.
It is too early to say how Obama is doing. He has faced so many crises in his early Presidency, possibly more than any previous President, and I would give him a B+ so far. But, next year we will know if anything him and Congress has done is really working.