Presidential Debate — I know my winner…
We watched the debate tonight. It was on lots of channels but we watched CNN. We didn’t watch the hour of pre-debate babble but we did stay tuned for the post-debate rehash. During the rehash of the debate I had to wonder if they watched the same debate that I saw.
My own opinion is that Obama won hands-down. Of course, I have my biases — I’m a “flaming” liberal and proud of it. I’m also pretty pragmatic and I know deep in my heart that our country is in a downward spiral and if something isn’t done to pull us out … and soon … we might as well just forget we were ever a world power. What I heard is that McCain plans to follow the same old plan that got us into this mess and continue the policies that have clearly not worked. Obama, being a pragmatist, also sees that we can’t afford this and intends to try to give us back our pride, our dignity, our place in the world by trying to extricate us from the bad decisions made in our past and to treat other countries as equals rather than acting like children in a playground demanding that others play by our rules or not at all.
McCain continually said “Obama doesn’t understand”. I think, or as far as I could tell from his answers, that Obama understood perfectly well the problems and the intricacies of the political arena — he just didn’t see things the same way that the Republican Party does or McCain does.
I understand that McCain’s party now has a video with all the times that Obama agreed with McCain. What it most likely doesn’t show is how often Obama tried to show that they both loved their country and were trying to do what’s right for it, but that they had fundamental differences in how to solve the problems. I’m sure that that video doesn’t show the exchange where Obama pointed out how often McCain was wrong.
McCain comes off as someone who just can’t see his way clear to think outside the box, not only that, he can’t let go of the bad old days — he’s a hawk. I believe that Obama could take us to war but it would be as a last resort. McCain would see it as a first or second option. Where Obama would turn to diplomacy, McCain would threaten.
The image I used for this article is the cover for the movie, Bullworth. In the movie, Bullworth is a politician who has hit bottom and has ordered a hit on himself so he has nothing to loose. He starts to tell the truth at all his talks. Suddenly, he finds himself as the top contender and listened to.
I loved the film — if only “real” politician could realize that if they spoke the truth instead of always telling us what they think we want to hear that our country would be in a much better place than it is now. If only the voters of this country would LISTEN and evaluate their politicians, we’d also be a lot better off.
I’m so glad that Obama pointed out just how much of a tax increase McCains tax reduction would be on the average citizen. McCain’s plan to give every American $5,000 dollars toward medical coverage sounds good until you look deeper into the fine print and find that the plan also would require employers to tax the money that is paid by the employer toward medical benefits as taxable income. Congrats, every working American just got a huge tax increase. Watch closely for the promises coming from McCain about how he plans to save us money — they usually come with a huge price tag that’s paid by those least able to afford it. Obama at least plans to tax those with incomes over $250,000 a year — since my family and everyone I know lives on a lot less than that, I think that’s fair. McCain complains about the poor companies that pay 37% in taxes — so what, I pay about 43-45% in taxes when you add Federal, State, County, and City taxes. I’m not crying boo-hoo about a company (like the poor oil companies) who could pay 37% but with the tax relief they get off paying less than most American’s making $20,000 a year. Yeah, McCain just convinced me that I had the right idea about these two candidates.