2nd Presidential debate is over…
Watched the second presidential debate last night and as far as I’m concerned Obama won — again. This one was in town hall format which was said to be McCain’s forte. However, I felt both candidates seemed comfortable in the set-up. After the debate, we stayed on CNN for the analysis just to see what they thought of things.
This morning when I checked the news, I learned that most of the pundits think Obama won also. Not surprising really since McCain didn’t give much you could work with except he’s a maverick — not. I also visited the independent fact checking sites this morning. I’ve noticed that when the republican candidates state something as fact and you check it out, it turns out to be either a down-right lie or misleading. On the other hand, checking the facts put forth by the democratic candidates, you find that either it’s the truth or misleading. Misleading I expect — each party is trying to put the best spin on their candidate but lies I can’t tolerate. What’s is especially annoying is that even when it’s pointed out to the republican candidates/party that their information is erroneous/false, they still keep harping on it — they don’t care if they lie as long as they get elected. Sheesh, I hope no one falls for their falsehoods, but based on what people say I guess if you tell the same lie often enough some people will believe it since they don’t bother to check things out themselves — on the principle that they couldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.
One of the things that I found interesting was that the focus group of 25 people in Ohio were given dials which they could turn to the positive side if they agreed with the candidate or felt a connection with the candidate. Throughout the debate Obama pretty much stayed above the median line and most of the time nearly hit the top of the positive area; when he did go negative it wasn’t very low either. McCain on the other hand often just hugged the center line with occasional forays into negative and positive (but never as high as Obama). Now the interesting things was that after the debate the group was asked who they think did the best job and it was overwhelmingly McCain. So, even thought throughout the debate they liked and connected most with Obama based on their dialing indicators, they said they like McCain best. I think this indicates a disconnect between what we think when we’re concentrating and reacting at the time and what our base response is. It seems no matter what you see or hear, you’ll fall back on your set preferences even when they don’t match your preferences as you indicate them during the debate. Hmmmmm….lots of potential for research here.
The image for this political post is for the movie An American President. I love the movies not so much for the love story, though that is interesting and well done, but because of the speech near the end. Michael Douglas playing Andrew Shepard saying … well why try to write it when you can listen to it.
What he expresses in this speech is what I think are the true tenets of democracy. It is hard. You do have to work at it. You must question your leaders and don’t fall for the feel good line. Listen. Think. Vote in November.
Wonder what they’ll do for the next debate.