BTW - I'm tired of hearing about Joe the Plumber.

McCain avoids answering questions and instead attacks Obama at every turn (which I guess he has no choice at this point). But, I think Obama is explaining things (like his health care) and McCain tries to answer , but then goes on to his stump speeches like "we can do it", "I know how to do it"....Know what I mean?

If you are watching CNN it has the audience meter, and everytime John mentions "Joe the Plumber" the line goes way down. Notice? It's not working.

Obama won this won handily too IMHO!! Seriously, who looks and acts more Presidential????? No contest.


TIS

There were a few times McCain was on a roll and got some good shots in but he's lost.

I'm now definitely convinced McCain doesn't know he's on camera when Obama is speaking. He's now looking all around when Obama is speaking, while Obama continues to look right at him when he speaks.

You know what? I know some plumbers. They make a freaking fortune. Joe IS rich.

This debate was more of the same.... bullshit.

Nothing new; it was a waste of my time.

Both Fox and MSNBC analysis concludes that McCain did little or nothing tonight to advance his candidacy.

In McCain's defense he did shake Obama's and Mrs O's hand and didn't call him "that one"

I liked this moderator(I already forgot his name) better than the other two.

My question is: Is Joe The Plumber a Maverick? Can I vote for him?

You wanna vote for someone who shows his crack for a living?

Report: Obama Mega-Ad Could Delay World Series Game

Barack Obama has secured three networks to air his 30-minute ad in late October, and it may even cut into World Series time

FOXNews.com

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

At least three of the major broadcast television networks have agreed to air a 30-minute ad from the Barack Obama campaign in late October, according to a report in Advertising Age.

The article also says that if there is a sixth game of the World Series, Major League Baseball will push the game's start later by 15 minutes so the FOX network can air the ad on Oct. 29. The start time was moved from 8:20 to 8:35 p.m.

According to Advertising Age, the Obama campaign is spending close to $3 million to air the 8 p.m. program on FOX, CBS and NBC.

The Republican National Committee scolded Obama on Wednesday for interfering with professional baseball's proceedings.

"It's unfortunate that the World Series' first pitch is being delayed for Obama's political pitch. Not only is Obama putting politics before principle, he's putting it before our national pastime," spokesman Alex Conant said.

The Obama campaign has not revealed the content of the half-hour ad.

"McCain's a liar, pants on fire".

Fuck that... play ball!!!

Meet Joe The Plumber:

Leave Barack Alone

That's Mr. Clean.

I turned on the debate during commercials of the ball game. McCain had a good line in distancing himself from Obama's comparison of him to Bush ("If you want to run against Bush, you should have run 4 years ago"). But this response is a little late as Obama has been hammering this comparison away since the convention.

I watched the meter too, TIS, and Obama has been much more popular than McCain on the healthcare issue. It's kind of hard for the American people to look past the McCain proposal to tax people's healtcare benefits.

I get the impression that the negative campaigning came from campaign advisors within the Republican Nat. Com. as they saw the gap in the polls widen and realized they were getting beat on the issues. McCain seems very uncomfortable with it. I think he also did not take kindly to the recent suggestions from supporters in crowds, admonishing him to fight and get tough. It is embarrassing and unpresidential to be told by a guy off the street that you have to toughen up.

By the way, Obama gave another gratuitous shout out to Scranton as he's looking to soldify the blue collar support that Biden is working hard for.

I actually thought McCain came out of the gate with guns blazing, on full attack. He was doing okay challenging Obama, until he started losing it around the middle, and then floundering in desperation at the end.

Keep in mind they are BOTH politicians, therefore they're both liars and conniving jerkoffs.

The Surge of the Whitebread Protestants to Obama

This used to be a solidly Republican group. In 2004, they went for President George W. Bush 54%-46%. This summer, John McCain was leading Sen. Obama among these voters 43% to 40%, according to a study by John Green of the University of Akron.

But an ABCNews/Washington Post poll released Monday showed Sen. Obama now leading among Mainliners 53%-44%, indicating that the undecided voters are breaking heavily for the Democratic candidate.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/10/the-surge-of-the-whitebread-pr.html

Senator Lugar (R-IN), ranking Republican Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, endorses Barack Obama (at least, on foreign policy):
http://www.republicansforobama.org/?q=node/3286

Karl Rove also forecasts an Obama win, 313 to 174 with 51 still up for grabs. The only states rated as "toss ups" were won by President Bush four years ago: Nevada, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina.

http://rove.com/uploads/0000/0042/McCain-Obama_10_14_08.pdf

I thought McCain did better, but he really had nowhere to go but up after his first two debates. His line about not being George Bush was good, but he should have been saying that months ago. I heard a lot of fluff, but never did I get the impression that McCain had full confidence in Palin.

Obama let McCain off the hook by not throwing the "fundamentals of the economy are strong" comment back in McCain's face. That statement summarizes how out-of-touch McCain has been with the financial crisis. I also thought Barack should have pressed the point of how Palin did nothing to quell the "kill him" shouts at recent rallies. I may have missed something, but I think even McCain asked the crowd only to reign it in when someone shouted "terrorist," not when "kill him" was shouted.

McCain's flippant comment about the "health" of a woman in an abortion should come back to bite him in the ass with some of his base, not to mention many women voters.

I agree on a certain level with you, goombah. I would have liked to see a feistier Obama. However, he really didn't need to be. He's leading in the polls by double digits. All he needed to do was exactly what he did - stay calm. Let McCain bluster away and come off looking a bit cranky. McCain baited Obama several times, and Obama took it all in stride and kept a level head.

Theirs a picture of them in my paper this morning. McCain has his finger up as if he's scolding someone. Obama is sitting across from him with his arms open, palms up, great body language. It's the perfect picture of the contrast between the two.

You're correct, SB. Obama did not have to be feisty. In fact, he was praised on CNN and MSNBC as being cool & collected. But he was also criticized by some for "not closing the deal" like he failed to do in the primaries. Had he done what I said, without getting personal and nasty, he may have scored a few more points with undecideds or independents. But in the end, Obama did what needed to not have a major gaffe and to maintain his lead.

One other thing that made me chuckle. McCain looked so mad at points last night that I thought a vein in his forehead would burst. The camera would do the split screen while Obama was talking and McCain's face would contort and his one eye would close a bit. That look by McCain reminded me of Popeye.

This from Fox News. Even they're saying it's over.

McCain Sees His Chances Slip Away
Thursday, October 16, 2008

By Susan Estrich

You can count them on one hand. Alabama, Kansas, Georgia and South Carolina. Every morning, realclearpolitics.com lists all the public polls, both state and national, released that day. Since Saturday, John McCain has been behind in every single national poll. He has also been behind in every major swing state. He’s down by double digits in Pennsylvania and Virginia, down by 13 in New Mexico, down by 10 in Virginia.

The “safe” states for McCain are few and far between, and not even close to a majority in the electoral college.

McCain’s defenders call it a “mid-single digit” deficit. Presidential elections don’t work like horsehoes. A “mid-single digit” defeat means you get clobbered. A “high-single digit” defeat means a landslide.

Right now, the race is somewhere between clobbered and landslide, somewhere between 1988 (seven points/clobbered) and 1980 (nine points/landslide). Not close. Not pretty.

Wednesday night was John McCain’s last big chance to change things. It was the last moment that a significant percentage of Americans will tune in to see the two candidates. It was the last chance for McCain to take on Barack Obama on an even playing field.

Starting Thursday, and for the 18 days that follow, Obama will be outspending McCain everywhere that matters by 2-1 or 3-1 – or more. Starting Thursday, Republicans everywhere will be covering their rear ends, trying to make sure that they are not swept up in what looks like a wave; trying to cut their losses, avoid taking people with them.

Wednesday night was McCain’s last best chance to avoid triage. He needed to make something happen. He didn’t. Wednesday night was not a “game-changer.” Don’t take my word for it. Ask Republican Mike Huckabee. He said it, and he’s right.

Joe the Plumber may be the new icon of the campaign, but Obama’s comment that we need to “spread the wealth around” is not going to cost him this election. It’s not that kind of year. It’s the kind of year where people who never worry are worried, where economic insecurity is rampant, where the problem is not too much government but not enough. By all means spread the wealth around, if there is any to spread around.

Maybe there was nothing McCain could have said to change things. Maybe the die was cast when the housing bubble exploded, when the Dow dropped, when the credit market froze. It may well be that we’ll look back and say, as we did in 1980, that thinking this would be a close election was a denial of economic reality; that all people needed was the barest reassurance that it was safe to say no to the incumbent party, and the party was over.

Maybe we’ll say that no matter who McCain picked, or how much he raised, or what he did, the end would have been the same, that Mitt Romney could not have done any better, in the first or second spot; that that when the percentage of Americans who think the country is heading on the right track is in the single digits, a single-digit defeat is the best the incumbent party can expect.

The Republican talking heads are all saying that McCain “won” on Wednesday night. What they mean is that they liked what they heard. As well they should. McCain played to his base on Wednesday night, and played hard. He played to avoid having the floor fall out from under him. He played for a single-digit defeat, not a victory.

October is not the time to play to your base. October is not the time for liberals to be proud of being liberals, or conservatives to be proud of being conservatives. That’s August. September, latest.

October is the time for Democrats to point out that abortion is a difficult issue, that reasonable people can disagree; that’s what Obama did Wednesday night. He was playing to the middle, because his base is secure.

As Jimmy Carter once said, life isn’t fair. It isn’t. Hillary Clinton supporters now understand that all that stood between her and the White House was a failed caucus strategy; that she, too, could have beaten John McCain, and would have.

True enough. John McCain supporters, particularly those who were with him eight years ago, must be pained by the realization that the man who beat them, slammed them, threw mud at them then is costing their man the election now. Wednesday night, at long last, John McCain insisted that he wasn’t George Bush, that if Barack Obama wanted to run against George Bush, he should have run four years ago.

It was a good line. It was a long overdue effort to draw a line in the sand. But it doesn’t work. Politics is not about fairness.

It may not be George Bush’s fault that the economy is in the toilet, but it happened on his watch. He would have taken credit for peace and prosperity. So he gets blamed for their absence. And so does his party, and its new leader. Live by the sword and die by the sword, even if it’s someone else’s sword.

Barack Obama is a very lucky guy. But it is also the case that he made his luck. The fat lady has yet to sing, but she is definitely getting ready.

After the debate, Fox News was talking about the split screen reactions. Brit Hume said Obama looked "confident", and McCain looked "peculiar".
....Apparently all the networks didn't run split screen, or only limited split screen. For those that missed it, watching McCain's reaction was probably the most entertaining thing about the debate.

McCain reminded me of Tom Coughlin last night.

Great look for a football coach, or a drunken loudmouth in a Queens pub. Not so much for Presidential timber.

McCain rolling his eyes.




Wait for the payoff at about 1:15 into this one. McCain's reaction to Obama answering the question about a "healthcare fine" is priceless. Obama needs to put out an ad with this one.

Lou, when I clicked play on the second video it said it was no longer available.

Oh well. Youtube removed it.

Here's a new Obama ad out today, that uses some of McCain's facial expressions from last night. Perhaps his best ad yet: