Oct 15 2008

Pre-Debate Live Blogging

Published by at 5:41 pm under 2008 Elections,All General Discussions

Update: Bottom line – I’m Joe The Plumber! The tag line from tonight – end update

To save myself time I am going to live blog the debate now and get it over with:

McCain wins most rounds, nation differs with me when polled.

OK, now that I have taken care of that I will be blogging only if something big happens – and I mean huge. Otherwise this is an open thread for you all to share your thoughts.

One thing I will be watching is Obama’s composure. Given all this noise about API having Michelle raging into the phone on a supposed recording, if it is true Obama may go into the debate rattled and off message. If he is composed I would take it as a sign there is ‘no there’ there.

9: 16 PM Eastern: Obama makes first unforced error. He claimed he would go after insurance subsidies meant to support seniors. Every senior just sat up in a cold sweat.  You don’t touch seniors’ medical benefits.

9:36 PM Eastern: Second Obama error – laughing when McCain said Obama needs to answer about ACORN.  He’s laughing at voter fraud and corruption. Second mistake, answering Ayers question when we all know he was well over 30 when he worked with him.

9:38 PM Eastern: Third mistake, admitting his ties to ACORN. Obama paid for ACORN.

9:42 PM Eastern: Scheiffer is asking really tough questions.  I really liked the question “why is your VP candidate better than the opposition’s.  Obama has shuffled off is his teleprompter again!

9:56 PM Eastern: The Obidiot showed up tonight – how did he go from Columbia, to Venezuela to Peru, to assassinated labor leaders, to car dealerships, car loans, retooled plants in the heartland, to solar panels – on free trade?  The man is babbling!!!!! OMG – he missed Kevin Bacon, you lose!

10:30 PM Eastern: Summary, Obama babbled, McCain had some good hits, the polls will disagree with me. Have a great evening!

48 responses so far

48 Responses to “Pre-Debate Live Blogging”

  1. AJStrata says:

    Scaulen,

    He is not in boot yet – short sheet!

  2. archtop says:

    Off topic – House elections – One down, 200+ to go :^)

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1008/Mahoney_may_not_seek_reelection.html

    The tide is turning!

  3. DJStrata says:

    Time to redistrict FL. Or to pick a non-political person to run in Foley-Mahoney territory.

  4. kathie says:

    Seem that Senators think in sound bites rather then in principal with policy to implement it.

  5. Aitch748 says:

    Now according to almost everything I’ve read in the past two and a half hours, John McCain mopped the floor with Barry. And yet there are people firmly convinced that Barry won the debate! And not just pundits, either. There is a certain “conservative look at film” site that just ran a debate thread, and the proprietor of that site has decided that McCain lost the debate and cannot do anything to win in the 20 days left before Election Day. I’m not just sick of the mainstream media with their endless polls; I’m also getting sick of the people whom the PUMAs call “Eeyores” — after “Eeyore” the implacably gloomy donkey character from Winnie the Pooh. What a night — after the incredible high of reading that McCain finally delivered the ass-whupping that conservatives have been demanding, I then read a conservative (?) insisting that it’s over for McCain. I am really getting fed up with that kind of talk.

    (Sorry, just had to rant before I went to bed.)

  6. kathie says:

    I think that Obama will win this election. Because McCain chose to run away everything George Bush he came to this race empty handed. The last eight years haven’t been all bad. Unemployment has been low until the dems took over. Bush lowered taxes for every American and took 15 million people off the tax rolls altogether. He stimulated job growth. McCain can’t even remind the voters what has been done and what more he would do. The biggest way to help the middle class is to make sure people have jobs. It is so pathetic that McCain can’t articulate a policy from beginning to end. Obama talks about governing principals, but when the rubber meets the road 98% of the policies will be shelved because they will be unworkable in this financial climate. But he will get his Supreme Court appointments. What a disaster.

  7. scaulen says:

    Geez is the media trying to pull a Jedi mind trick on the US or what? Wave hands “Obama is your future President, he has won every debate.”

    And could Olberman stop wearing his mothers couch that he shot and skinned?

    AJ he’s going to have fun in boot camp, remind him and remind him and remind him, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Don’t ever volunteer for anything in boot camp no matter how good it sounds, especially any offer to make sugar cookies, or go flying. After boot when he is in the fleet is his time to shine, not boot.

  8. AJStrata says:

    Aitch748 – and now you understand how conservative idiots let the Dems take control of Congress in 1996 and promised America would learn a lesson and beg them to come back!

    Idjuts.

  9. J.D. says:

    Aitch,

    Agreed. Bill Kristol made me want to hurl on Fox tonight. Guys like him are the reason we have moderate McCain as our nominee, and now he is disappointed that McCain has half-heartedly extended himself towards the Republican base.

    McCain had Obama on the ropes again and again tonight and backed off. If Bill Kristol had his way, McCain would’ve never thrown a punch.

  10. ExposeFannyNFreddyNow says:

    McCain did well tonight but still left a lot of cake on the table and a lot of openings for the MSM to fan the flames.

    I still think he needs to go big with Fannie & Freddie. He needs to drive home how he might have forestalled the current crisis, how BO and his Dem cronies all profited big time off the backs of those least likely to sustain the fallout, and how they all stymied every effort to fend off the current apocalypse.

    But there is one thing that should be a bonus for our side if McCain can use it wisely. BO’s getting both cocky and desperate. There’s a really weird megalomania to his campaign that’s now starting to foam at the mouth.

    Given what some polls are saying is a staggering lead, he’s spending wildly, like never before in election history wildly. He’s buying advertising in every nook and cranny he can imagine, right down to background billboards in video games. This from someone leading for weeks now and supposedly gaining into the double digits.

    Obama doesn’t just want to win this one. He wants to quite literally annihilate the opposition, much like how he ran and won his senate seat. This guy has some serious issues.

    But as AJ mentioned, there is a point of saturation, and in Obama’s case, the tipping point is just screaming now.

    The super-saturation of all the paid advertising he’s already committed to should really make America stand up and wonder, “Wow, that Obama sure knows how to spend, spend, spend, on splash, splash, splash. It’s really reassuring to think he’ll be the one holding America’s purse strings and asking Americans to give more, more, more – just like all the more, more, more he and his friends collected from Fannie & Freddie to cause the current economic collapse.”

    And if McCain can blow Fannie & Freddie wide open right across America, and so big that the Dems and the MSM can’t ignore it without looking like the jack*sses that they are, he’ll get a bench-clearing bottom of the ninth come-from-behind win that will have grassroots Americans cheering him from the rafters from coast to coast as the Eliot Ness of 2008.

    Kudos to McCain on the night. But the fight’s far from over. Take Obama to the mat and hammer the truth home!

  11. ExposeFannyNFreddyNow says:

    The other thing to keep in mind is we’ll never change the Olbermanns or all those glassy-eyed Obamabots who listened to his babbling like babies listening to O-mama’s lullabies.

    It’s changing the undecideds. And right now, the only thing the undecideds are really waiting on is what will happen with the economy and how the next two weeks will reflect on the candidates ability to steer America’s economy back to solvency.

    Obama has a lot of land mines that are all building. He’s avoided them but he hasn’t defused a single one, not even his litany of mis-associations.

    The thing is to keep baiting him towards the big ones. Fannie & Freddie. Franklin Raines. Jim Johnson. ACORN. And spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. And really light the fuse on Fannie & Freddie and the Dems who participated.

    And start naming names! That’ll get Obama and all those Dems on the take feeling some serious heat.

    Nothing gets a crooked politician scurrying for cover more than when their own necks are on the line. Do like the cops do. Get them all squealing separately from their own corners and one of them’s bound to start singing.

    My money’s on Barney Frank as the first stoolie.

  12. Terrye says:

    I think McCain won. I have learned to turn the TV off after the debate and just let my own instincts guide me on these things, I think I have as good an idea how the average American feels as any talking head. After all I am an average American and most of them are not.

  13. Terrye says:

    WWS:

    I know some Democrats who are voting for McCain too.

  14. crosspatch says:

    I took my son bowling. The place was packed. The debate was showing on one wide screen in the place. One person seemed to be paying attention.

    Like I said a couple of weeks ago, it’s like watching the Pro Bowl. If you are a die hard football fan, its great, but it doesn’t really matter. Same with the debates. Most people who are going to vote have already made up their minds and at this point a flub in a debate isn’t going to cause me to vote for Obama. There is just so much difference between the two. I can choose between voting for fraud and corruption and “the machine doing business as usual” (Obama) or I can vote for someone who at least has a shot at not making things any worse (McCain).

  15. Terrye says:

    kathie:

    No, the last 8 years have not been all bad. In fact I would make the point that the economy has done pretty well for most of that time. And people forget that there have been reasons for the spending as well. 9/11, the creation of the Homeland Security Deprt. War on Terror, enhanced border security, reorganization of the intelligence community..and so forth.

    And it is also true that since the Democrats took over a couple of years ago the economy has gotten worse.

    But McCain is not Bush, he never was and we can’t expect him to run as if he were.

  16. Terrye says:

    crosspatch:

    In truth I did not see many flubs in that debate. And I saw something I have not seen before, Obama got nervous enough that he blushed.

  17. ExposeFannyNFreddyNow says:

    “Hey Big Spender!”

    WSJ: Obama hasn’t closed the sale
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122411909182439021.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

    UKTimes: No expense spared on TV ads of Barack Obama
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4951526.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

    For better or worse, word’s out. Obama is spending a lot! He’ll also have so oversaturated the market, people will be oozing Obama from their ears. He’ll be inescapable … and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

  18. bush_is_best says:

    I think McCain did pretty well… reminds me a little of the old (younger) McCain who speaks for himself and has a at least a shred of compassion in his soul… best of the 3 so far I think… Obama is still, well, Obama, so he tends to come across fairly well when speaking and issues and answering questions and explaining things and seeming qualified to lead are concerned… but I was not blown away by Obama this time… think the tight race got a little tighter… I’ll give it to McCain on south america and health care, Obamas got the edge on education and choice issues… the two actually agree more than people like to admit, too, which I think is interesting…

    but then again, I tend to support progressive ideals which makes me a close-minded idiot terrorist who’d buy a bomb intended for his own kids day care to save a trees’ life if I hadn’t given all my money away to tax increases and organizations promoting voter fraud and sex education for 3 year olds.

  19. crosspatch says:

    At work we are going gangbusters. We can’t find good people to hire. Business is increasing every month. My work load is through the roof and honestly, I can’t take on much more.

    I am seeing no signs of a general economic downturn in my area. The only thing I am seeing is a slump in house prices in some areas and that depends on the schools. Houses in the desirable school districts are maintaining their value. My zip code has been stable. Houses aren’t dropping but they aren’t rising anymore either.

    The malls are packed. There is no major unemployment. In a general economic downturn you find overqualified people applying for any job they can find. We can’t find even qualified people.

    Santa Clara and San Benito counties lost about 1200 jobs on August compared to last year but it appears that most of those job losses were in the financial industry. So again, finance is having a hard time basically because of the bubble in home appreciation in California, but the rest of the economy in this area is still pretty sound.

    I am not seeing any signs of anything like what we saw during the tech bust around 2000.

  20. Toes192 says:

    Do not get me wrong… I am 100% McCain… But… [in my opinion] Senator McCain did not win any debate… Close call goes to Senator Obama… sry, folks… There may be a case for catching up in the stretch but this debate was not it… Senator McCain missed some easy shots such as pounding Senator Obama’s omission of Nuclear from energy solution and the qualifications of Our Sarah in the energy field… and… failure to be more specific… I thought he rambled some and regurgitated talking points too much as well… Not enough to sway many votes… and some of the stuff such as Columbia… probably 80% of the voters know very little about that…