Final debate
Special Debate Edition
In the much-anticipated final presidential debate of the 2008 campaign
season, the man who landed the greatest number of punches, say the
commentators, ultimately lost the debate. Despite the invocation of a
terrorist, it was a plumber who may have been McCain's undoing.
Salon's Joan Walsh explains
it this way:
John McCain promised to kick Barack Obama's "you know
what" on Wednesday night. He hinted that he'd bring up former Weather
Underground leader Bill Ayers and worse. Instead McCain bludgeoned
Obama with Joe the Plumber, and the effect was more farce than
fierce.
Indeed, one Joe the Plumber, "an apparently wealthy Toledo businessman
who complained he'd pay more taxes under Obama's plan," according to
Walsh, was cited repeatedly by McCain as the kind of regular guy who
would suffer under several Obama proposals, ranging from income tax to
health care. In fact, it was later discovered, Joe would only pay
higher income taxes under Obama's if he netted $250,000 for himself,
and would only incur a fine under Obama's health care plan if he was a
large employer who refused to make "a meaningful contribution" to his
employees' health care coverage.
But McCain just couldn't let go of Joe -- and then Obama got in on the act.
Live-blogging for Mother Jones, Johnathan Stein and Nick
Baumann, initially began counting the JTP references, but by the
half-hour mark, simply
offered up this:
10:01: Joe the plumber Joe the plumber Joe the plumber Joe
the plumber Joe the plumber Joe the plumber Joe the plumber Joe the
plumber Joe the plumber.10:05: Do you think Sen. McCain's advisers told him to speak directly
to the American people, and McCain thought they said he should talk
directly to an American person? Thus the to-the-camera addressing of
JTP?[...]
10:15: Turns out, the plumbers were the first union to endorse Obama...
"Barack Obama is the choice of the UA because he has
always fought for working people throughout his career and will do the
best job of bringing badly-needed change to Washington. Obama will
help us keep existing jobs and work to develop new, higher paying jobs
here in America, reform our health care system, fix our ailing schools
and make sure that the pensions of our retirees are
safe."
All this Joe stuff from MoJo's liveblogging boy team clearly irritated
the magazine's live-Tweeting girl team of Laura McClure and Elizabeth
Gettelman, who said via Twitter, in essence, enough about Joe; what
about the much more accomplished Josephine the Plumber?
The plumbing of the depths of inanity rather than economy led The
American Prospect's Dana Goldstein to sum up the debate this way
on TAPPED:
Thank God these horse-and-pony shows are done with, truly.
"Joe the Plumber," if you exist, bless your heart, but I've never
experienced a more irritating gimmick than your insertion into this
debate. The economic crisis? It has been boiled down by moderator
after moderator this season into a contest on which candidate is the
more convincing budget hawk. But has anyone ever heard of Keynes or
FDR? Infrastructure and social spending is what will create jobs in a
recession. Unfortunately, the lessons of history have never been major
topics in these debates.
Greg Sargent of TPM Election Central puts it this way:
[C]onsider McCain's frequent evocation of Joe The Plumber.
This attack from McCain was clearly labored over heavily by his aides.
But it fell flat for a very simple reason: It didn't change the basic
underlying policy disagreements between the two men. It
didn't change the fact that people agree with Obama's solutions to
our economic crisis, and reject McCain's ideas. In the face of
that overwhelming reality, the constant evocation of Joe The Plumber
just came across like a stunt.
Of course, Joe is not the man we came poised to hear about. After
weeks and months of accusations about the alleged role of a former
member of the Weather Underground in Obama's career, we sat ready to
hear the name "William Ayers" fall from McCain's lips. In the first
two debates, McCain failed to utter Ayers' name, instead allowing his
running-mate to invoke it on the campaign trail, alleging that Barack
Obama was "palling around with terrorists". (And do note the plural.)
Obama, before this debate, threw down, daring McCain to raise the
issue "to my face." And so McCain did. David
Corn of Mother Jones recounts:
Prior to the debate, there was much chatter about whether
McCain would play the Ayers card. Judging from video of his recent
rallies, it appeared that his base was demanding blood on this front.
But polls indicated that these sorts of attacks have been hurting
McCain with in-the-middle voters. So he faced a tough decision: ignore
Ayers and upset the diehards or accuse Obama of being a pal of a
domestic terrorist and alienate the indies.McCain and his strategists came up with a hybrid approach: take a shot
on the Ayers front and combine it with a traditional political
assault. "I don't care about an old washed-up terrorist," McCain
huffed, but then he went on to say, "we need to know the full extent
of that relationship." Huh? If you don't care about Ayers, why do you
care about the relationship?
In The Washington Independent, Ari Melber, blogging at the debate site at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., says:
Asked about his running mate's false charge that Obama
"palled around with terrorists," McCain offered an indignant
non-sequitur. He demanded that Obama condemn Rep. John Lewis's
criticism of incendiary rhetoric at GOP rallies, which McCain said was
unfair because it likened his campaign to America's segregation era.
"That, to me, was so hurtful," he intoned. Yet within minutes, McCain
busied himself with the guilt-by-association attacks.
Another line of attack pursued by McCain was his attempt to link Obama
directly to ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for
Reform Now. As progressives have redoubled efforts to prevent the
sort of voter disenfranchisement seen in Ohio and elsewhere during the
2004 presidential election, Republicans have focused on the voter registration efforts of ACORN, which is active in communities of color. An acknowledged lack of quality control has led
to false registrations filed in some states, usually at the hands of subcontractors who defrauded ACORN itself. When McCain raised the issue, Obama dismissed it rather handily. But on another question, Obama coyly challenged the ACORN and Ayers narratives by going after FOX News. As Ari Melber, writing on this aspect for The Nation reports:
Standing beneath a dark blue campaign sign in the "spin
room" at the Hofstra gym, Obama communications director Dan Pfeifer
said the campaign had determined that Fox was a "powerful
infrastructure whose goal is to drive a cultural schism in America."
Pointing to the channel's "calculated" efforts to "push issues like
ACORN and Bill Ayers," Pfeifer said the campaign will confront "anyone
who seeks to advance a false argument about Obama." Some reporters at
Fox are "fair and admirable," he added, but "they're the exception
rather than the rule."
Despite all the drama in McCain's attempts to paint Obama as a less
than savory character, McCain's real undoing likely came on a subject
that has plagued nearly every American politician for more than 25
years -- abortion. To please his base, McCain said he would appoint
"strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court. Then, apparently to
please independent voters, he offered a disquisition on how he would
adhere to no "litmus test" in appointing justices. Pretty likely to
tick off the base. Then came his sneering comment about provisions
for the health of a pregnant women in abortion law. AlterNet's Don
Hazen describes the
moment:
Late in the debate was the clincher for McCain's demise.
McCain lost it the most when discussing abortion, putting air quotes
around "health of the woman," belittling women's health concerns as if
it were a political slogan, This stage of the debate was infuriating,
and will be remembered by millions of women. The notion that many
women thought McCain to be pro-choice, is now ancient
history.
At RH Reality Check, Emily Douglas gives us the McCain quote (remember the air quotes around
"health of the mother") and explains:
McCAIN: Just again, the example of the
eloquence of Senator Obama. He's for the health of the mother. You
know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to
mean almost anything.The health exception [to late-term abortion bans] allows women who are
physically or mentally compromised by pregnancy to protect themselves
by terminating. This means "almost anything?" This is "extreme?" Since
when does ensuring protection of the health of women -- many of them
mothers - when discussing abortion access become something to
challenge or argue against? It's a testament to the anti-choice
movement that their positions are so extreme and punitive that they
need to resort to attacking women.Special Debate Edition
In the much-anticipated final presidential debate of the 2008 campaign
season, the man who landed the greatest number of punches, say the
commentators, ultimately lost the debate. Despite the invocation of a
terrorist, it was a plumber who may have been McCain's undoing.
Salon's Joan Walsh explains it this way:John McCain promised to kick Barack Obama's "you know
what" on Wednesday night. He hinted that he'd bring up former Weather
Underground leader Bill Ayers and worse. Instead McCain bludgeoned
Obama with Joe the Plumber, and the effect was more farce than
fierce.Indeed, one Joe the Plumber, "an apparently wealthy Toledo businessman
who complained he'd pay more taxes under Obama's plan," according to
Walsh, was cited repeatedly by McCain as the kind of regular guy who
would suffer under several Obama proposals, ranging from income tax to
health care. In fact, it was later discovered, Joe would only pay
higher income taxes under Obama's if he netted $250,000 for himself,
and would only incur a fine under Obama's health care plan if he was a
large employer who refused to make "a meaningful contribution" to his
employees' health care coverage.But McCain just couldn't let go of Joe -- and then Obama got in on the act.
Live-blogging for Mother Jones, Johnathan Stein and Nick
Baumann, initially began counting the JTP references, but by the
half-hour mark, simply offered up this:10:01: Joe the plumber Joe the plumber Joe the plumber Joe
the plumber Joe the plumber Joe the plumber Joe the plumber Joe the
plumber Joe the plumber.10:05: Do you think Sen. McCain's advisers told him to speak directly
to the American people, and McCain thought they said he should talk
directly to an American person? Thus the to-the-camera addressing of
JTP?[...]
10:15: Turns out, the plumbers were the first union to endorse
Obama..."Barack Obama is the choice of the UA because he has
always fought for working people throughout his career and will do the
best job of bringing badly-needed change to Washington. Obama will
help us keep existing jobs and work to develop new, higher paying jobs
here in America, reform our health care system, fix our ailing schools
and make sure that the pensions of our retirees are safe."All this Joe stuff from MoJo's liveblogging boy team clearly irritated
the magazine's live-Tweeting girl team of Laura McClure and Elizabeth
Gettelman, who said via Twitter, in essence, enough about Joe; what
about the much more accomplished Josephine the
Plumber?The plumbing of the depths of inanity rather than economy led The
American Prospect's Dana Goldstein to sum up the debate this way
on TAPPED:Thank God these horse-and-pony shows are done with, truly.
"Joe the Plumber," if you exist, bless your heart, but I've never
experienced a more irritating gimmick than your insertion into this
debate. The economic crisis? It has been boiled down by moderator
after moderator this season into a contest on which candidate is the
more convincing budget hawk. But has anyone ever heard of Keynes or
FDR? Infrastructure and social spending is what will create jobs in a
recession. Unfortunately, the lessons of history have never been major
topics in these debates.Greg Sargent of TPM Election Central puts it
this way:[C]onsider McCain's frequent evocation of Joe The Plumber.
This attack from McCain was clearly labored over heavily by his aides.
But it fell flat for a very simple reason: It didn't change the basic
underlying policy disagreements between the two men. It
didn't change the fact that people agree with Obama's solutions to
our economic crisis, and reject McCain's ideas. In the face of
that overwhelming reality, the constant evocation of Joe The Plumber
just came across like a stunt.Of course, Joe is not the man we came poised to hear about. After
weeks and months of accusations about the alleged role of a former
member of the Weather Underground in Obama's career, we sat ready to
hear the name "William Ayers" fall from McCain's lips. In the first
two debates, McCain failed to utter Ayers' name, instead allowing his
running-mate to invoke it on the campaign trail, alleging that Barack
Obama was "palling around with terrorists". (And do note the plural.)
Obama, before this debate, threw down, daring McCain to raise the
issue "to my face." And so McCain did. David Corn of Mother Jones recounts:Prior to the debate, there was much chatter about whether
McCain would play the Ayers card. Judging from video of his recent
rallies, it appeared that his base was demanding blood on this front.
But polls indicated that these sorts of attacks have been hurting
McCain with in-the-middle voters. So he faced a tough decision: ignore
Ayers and upset the diehards or accuse Obama of being a pal of a
domestic terrorist and alienate the indies.McCain and his strategists came up with a hybrid approach: take a shot
on the Ayers front and combine it with a traditional political
assault. "I don't care about an old washed-up terrorist," McCain
huffed, but then he went on to say, "we need to know the full extent
of that relationship." Huh? If you don't care about Ayers, why do you
care about the relationship?At The Washington Independent, Ari Melber, blogging at the debate site at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., says:
Asked about his running mate's false charge that Obama
"palled around with terrorists," McCain offered an indignant
non-sequitur. He demanded that Obama condemn Rep. John Lewis's
criticism of incendiary rhetoric at GOP rallies, which McCain said was
unfair because it likened his campaign to America's segregation era.
"That, to me, was so hurtful," he intoned. Yet within minutes, McCain
busied himself with the guilt-by-association attacks.Another line of attack pursued by McCain was his attempt to link Obama
directly to ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for
Reform Now. As progressives have redoubled efforts to prevent the
sort of voter disenfranchisement seen in Ohio and elsewhere during the
2004 presidential election, Republicans have focused on the voter registration efforts of ACORN, which is active in communities of color. An acknowledged lack of quality control has led to false registrations filed in some states, usually at the hands of subcontractors who defrauded ACORN itself. When McCain raised the issue, Obama dismissed it rather handily. But on another question, Obama coyly challenged the ACORN and Ayers narratives by going after
FOX News. As Ari Melber, writing on this aspect for The Nation reports:Standing beneath a dark blue campaign sign in the "spin
room" at the Hofstra gym, Obama communications director Dan Pfeifer
said the campaign had determined that Fox was a "powerful
infrastructure whose goal is to drive a cultural schism in America."
Pointing to the channel's "calculated" efforts to "push issues like
ACORN and Bill Ayers," Pfeifer said the campaign will confront "anyone
who seeks to advance a false argument about Obama." Some reporters at
Fox are "fair and admirable," he added, but "they're the exception
rather than the rule."Despite all the drama in McCain's attempts to paint Obama as a less
than savory character, McCain's real undoing likely came on a subject
that has plagued nearly every American politician for more than 25
years -- abortion. To please his base, McCain said he would appoint
"strict constructionists" to the Supreme Court. Then, apparently to
please independent voters, he offered a disquisition on how he would
adhere to no "litmus test" in appointing justices. Pretty likely to
tick off the base. Then came his sneering comment about provisions
for the health of a pregnant women in abortion law. AlterNet's Don
Hazen describes the
moment:Late in the debate was the clincher for McCain's demise.
McCain lost it the most when discussing abortion, putting air quotes
around "health of the woman," belittling women's health concerns as if
it were a political slogan, This stage of the debate was infuriating,
and will be remembered by millions of women. The notion that many
women thought McCain to be pro-choice, is now ancient
history.At RH Reality Check, Emily
Douglas gives us the McCain quote (remember the air quotes around
"health of the mother") and explains:McCAIN: Just again, the example of the
eloquence of Senator Obama. He's for the health of the mother. You
know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to
mean almost anything.The health exception [to late-term abortion bans] allows women who are
physically or mentally compromised by pregnancy to protect themselves
by terminating. This means "almost anything?" This is "extreme?" Since
when does ensuring protection of the health of women -- many of them
mothers - when discussing abortion access become something to
challenge or argue against? It's a testament to the anti-choice
movement that their positions are so extreme and punitive that they
need to resort to attacking women.At the night's end, though, it seemed that McCain was undone more by
his affect and temperament than any one thing he said. As The
American Prospect's Ezra
Klein cracked wise in his live blog:10:04: Someone is going to create a vicious video of
McCain's eye roles, neck bulges, sighs, head tilts, death stares, and
evident moments of gastrointestinal distress.The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel adds, "[B]y halftime, punditocrats brayed in virtual unison, it seemed as if McCain needed anger management
therapy."Laura Rozen of War and Piece is more compassionate:
[O]ne can increasingly foresee McCain as a somewhat tragic
figure, likely to be defeated in a way by his own party and the
pressures to be his party's candidate and run his party's type of
divisive, smear-filled, non-issue based negative campaign, against
perhaps some of his own inclinations. McCain really comes across as
increasingly embittered.Despite the growing consensus that last night's debate was a win for
Obama, The Progressive's Ruth Conniff isn't about to hedge
her bets. Live-blogging, she put it
like this:Obama: the biggest risk we could take right now is to
adopt the same failed polices and the same failed politics we've seen
over the last eight years and somehow expect a different result.But the American voter just might fit this definition of
insanity.Or maybe not.
Obama didn't play to his base. He remained unfazed when McCain took
rhetorical shots, and delivered a performance that was so reserved as
to be a bit of a snooze, thus shoring up the doubts his campaign has
planted about his opponent's temper. However dull it looked on
screen, Obama's performance in this final debate may be remembered as
quite masterful.This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting
about John McCain. Visit JohnMcCain.NewsLadder.net
for a complete list of articles on McCain. And for the best
progressive reporting on two critical issues, check out Immigration.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net.JohnMcCain.NewsLadder.net
is a project of The Media
Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and
created by NewsLadder. Adele
M. Stan is executive editor of The Media Consortium's syndicated
reporting project.
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