Fox gives McCain an 82% win over Obama in the latest debate

[mxlm]

I guarantee you that when Obama becomes President, if he pitches this idea the cost issue alone will kill it. And think of the drain on the economy by removing them from the workforce. Who would flip my burgers?

Pfft. Everyone knows the best way to strengthen an economy is to drastically shrink its labor pool. Clearly what we need is a draft. A very, very large draft.

[Zelknolf]

Like you, or the rwnj websites you read, know anything about it. As for school indoctrination, well...

Now *that's* scary!

That is scary!

Or... funny...


...


Yeah, it's just funny. And it makes me want to bless someone with bottled water. Or hit something with a hammer for Jesus!

[Kest]

there are two kinds of people in the world

[Grand Fromage]

those who know math, those who sort of know math, and those who don't

[Mulu]

Second update: On the CBS web site a poll of 516 people showed Obama winning 40% to McCain's 26% with 34% calling the debate a draw.

First update: MediaCurves in a poll of 1001 people reports that Republicans thought McCain won the debate 68 to 20; Democrats thought Obama won the debate 84 to 10; Independents thought Obama won the debate 52 to 34.

Initial post:

VERY early poll results from CNN show Obama winning the 2nd debate 54 to 30.

I thought again that both candidates did well, though it was fun to watch the CNN tracking and watch it nosedive every time either candidate went negative. So much for that approach, voters want answers during a crisis. Of course, a push means McCain loses. He needs a reversal. Personally I think McCain is toast. Going negative won't work in this environment, he has nothing new or positive to promote other than a crazy idea to buy up all outstanding bad mortgages (wouldn't changing the bankruptcy laws work better and cheaper? ), and the economy will be headline news well into and after the election, so it's not like it's going to "go away." The only thing that can save his candidacy now is a terrorist attack on US soil. Scared people vote for the decisive guy, regardless of the quality of his decisions. This election is very close to being a lock.

On the all-important issue of the economy, Obama got a boost. Before the event 55% thought he would make the right decisions on the economy; afterwards it was 68%. McCain also gained strength, going from 41% to 48%. On the issue of who best understands the voters needs, Obama went from 59% to 80% and McCain went from 33% to 44%.

CNN also ran a poll of 675 adults and also concluded that Obama won. Here 54% said Obama performed better and 30% said McCain did. The people polled thought Obama was the more intelligent person by 57% to 25% and expressed his views more clearly 60% to 30%. In a way, these numbers are not surprising. Obama has degrees from two Ivy League schools and was president of the Harvard Law Review. McCain went to the Naval Academy and came in 894th out of 899 students in his class.

Ah yes, the bottom of the bell curve. Always a good place to find the next president.

We have 20 presidential polls today. A few are noteworthy. First, in New Hampshire, Obama leads McCain by 53% to 45%. New Hampshire is the only Kerry state McCain might conceivably win and the chances of even that happening are very small now so McCain is entirely playing defense, trying to hold all the Bush states. A couple of those look shaky, especially Colorado, Insider Advantage puts Obama ahead by 6 points. Obama is also leading in two other swing states, Nevada and Ohio. North Carolina and Florida are too close to call.

An interesting debate plus analysis site.

And now, the fact check:

LIVE FACT CHECK
Second Presidential Debate: Nashville

Computers
10:01 p.m.
Obama claimed that the government had invented the computer in order to encourage scientists to communicate. He probably meant the Internet. The personal computer was invented by Apple and other private companies. IBM pioneered the mechanical punch card tabulating machines which formed the basis for the large mainframe computers.
--Michael Dobbs


Taxes
9:57 p.m.
Once again, McCain said that Obama raised taxes 94 times. This came up in the vice presidential debate, and it is a bogus charge.

Fact check.org, a non-partisan watchdog, has analyzed the charge.

Of the 94, 23 of those votes were indeed votes against proposed tax cuts. Eleven of them were increases on families earning over $1 million to help fund programs such as Head Start and school nutrition. And 53 were on non-binding budget resolutions that foresaw allowing tax cuts to expire as scheduled. Such out-year projections are meaningless, since non-binding budgets are passed each year.
Fact.check.org ruled the claim misleading.
--Glenn Kessler


Health Care
9:46 p.m.
In outlining his tax policy, John McCain boasted that he would give all American families a $5,000 tax credit to allow them to go out and buy their own health insurance. This is true but it is only part of the story. The other part, which McCain rarely mentions on the campaign trail, is that the Republican candidate has also proposed taxing employer-provided health benefits, which will wipe out most of extra income from the tax credit.
--Michael Dobbs


Oil
9:43 p.m.
Sen. McCain talked about the U.S sending "$700 billion, some of it to countries that don't like us very much." And he said, "My friends, some of this $700 billion ends up in the hands of terrorists organizations." He's talking about the U.S. imports of oil, for which the U.S. consumers send money to the countries that produce the oil.

In fact, according to the Energy Information Administration, which bills itself as offering the "official energy statistics from the U.S. government," the top producer of crude oil for import into the U.S. is Canada, not exactly a country that doesn't like us. The second largest is Saudia Arabia, another ally. And then Mexico, also a key ally.

But McCain is right that the list also includes countries like Venezuela, whose leader, Hugo Chavez, can accurately be proclaimed to be "no friend" of the U.S. And the list includes Nigeria, Iraq, Angola, Brazil, Algeria, Ecuador, Russa, Colombia, Azerbaijan, Kuwait and Chad.

It is not possible to know how much of the money that flows into some of those countries ends up in the hands of terrorists organizations.
--Michael D. Shear


Boeing Contract
9:33 p.m.
McCain took credit for his crusade to block a new contract for Boeing for a new fleet of midair refueling tankers. He said he saved taxpayers more than $6 billion while launching a Senate probe that found cozy relations between Pentagon officials and Boeing executives.

But the GAO found significant problems in the rebidding of the new contract, which had awarded the contract to a partnership between Northrup Grumman and the European firm EADS.

"This shows how a sort of naive crusade for good government can actually backfire," Loren Thompson, of the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank, told Newsweek.
--Glenn Kessler


Earmarks
9:28 p.m.
McCain continues to make an issue out of earmarks, which are only a small part of the overall federal budget. The big ticket items are entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and defense spending, which together represent much of the federal budget; earmarks are just $16 billion out of a more than a $2 trillion budget.
--Glenn Kessler


Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
9:24 p.m.
Sen. McCain claimed that Sen. Obama was the second-highest recipient of money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "in history." In fact, according to the OpenSecrets.Org site, which tracks political contributions, Obama was third among senators in receiving contributions from the two mortgage giants during the period of 1989 to 2008.

Having received $105,849, he falls behind Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Christoper Dodd (D-Conn.) in third place, not second. And it's unclear where McCain bases his claim that Obama is second "in history" since the sites that track these contributions don't use that kind of duration.
--Michael D. Shear

Obama explained the Bush administrarion’s $700 billion financial rescue package clearly and succinctly, better than Bush himself has done. For a country trying to understand what the heck is going on in the economy, that was a service. He explained the damage that has been done by deregulation of financial markets. His line about how we have had an “archaic 20th century regulatory system for 21st century financial markets” was exactly right. And he explained, succinctly and coherently, what’s wrong with McCain’s health care plan.

McCain, in contrast, basically whiffed at the rhetorical ball. Sometimes he didn’t even swing. He doesn’t explain himself well, and he seems to know it. So he asserts, or blusters, or crows. And someone needs to tell him that he’s overdoing the “my friends” thing to the point that it is becoming grating.
/
And finally, since we’re all thinking about analogies to the Great Depression, am I the only person who finds something Hooveresque in McCain’s repeated insistence on the need to cut federal spending as a response to the economic crisis -- even to the point of calling for a spending freeze. That same kind of anti-government, anti-spending rhetoric was at the center of Hoover’s disastrously failed recovery plan.

The comments are even better than the article!

[ç i p h é r]

1. The fact that Obama would make time to give a meaningless speech to a European audience but neglect to visit *wounded* veterans injured in service to their county hurts Obama. I can't think of any valid reason not to visit them given that he is seeking to be Commander in Chief, especially at a time when we are at war on two (or more) fronts. The only people who don't think anything of this are those who are either blinded by Obama-worship or who don't like the military to begin with.

2. Framing McCain's intellect as suspect on the basis that he graduated near the bottom of his class at the naval academy is pretty simplistic reasoning. Perhaps he just wasn't interested in becoming a military man at the time. Perhaps he was compelled to enter into naval service by family tradition rather than a genuine desire to become a naval officer. Who knows, but it's a stupid argument. You can't judge a man by a single episode in his life. It'd be like judging Obama solely on the basis that he's a lawyer, and I don't particularly have much respect for people in that profession.

3. The move toward Obama in this economic crisis is not based on any rational or sound reasoning. It's based on panic. As I argued before, Democrats are, minimally, equally culpable, though I believe they have their fingerprints on this thing moreso than the Republicans do. But here's what FactCheck has to say about it:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008 ... risis.html

But the real worry is that if Obama gets elected and we end up with yet another rubber stamp congress, I believe things can and will get worse. When McCain mentioned higher taxes hurting the economy and alluded to protectionism during the Great Depression in Tuesday's debate, he was referring to exactly that.

We already know that Obama wants to raise taxes in certain areas (income tax on 250k+ earners, capital gains tax) and that he intends to re-examine our trade agreements, all on the very nebulous concept of "fairness". Unfortunately, what's "fair" in Obama's view may not necessarily be what's good for the economy.

[Mulu]

The only people who don't think anything of this are those who are either blinded by Obama-worship or who don't like the military to begin with.

Or realize that there are a thousand legitimate reasons why he may have had to cancel. He did schedule to meet with them in the first place, so his intent was to do so. Otherwise why bother?

2. Framing McCain's intellect as suspect on the basis that he graduated near the bottom of his class at the naval academy is pretty simplistic reasoning. Perhaps he just wasn't interested in becoming a military man at the time. Perhaps he was compelled to enter into naval service by family tradition rather than a genuine desire to become a naval officer. Who knows, but it's a stupid argument. You can't judge a man by a single episode in his life.

Yeah, grades, like they mean anything.

It'd be like judging Obama solely on the basis that he's a lawyer, and I don't particularly have much respect for people in that profession.

No, it would be like judging Obama on being last in his class in law school. Of course, he wasn't. Bad analogies make for poor arguments.

More to the point, so you disrespect every Judge and Justice that's ever sat on the bench? They all start out as lawyers, you know. So do most Senators. Not having respect for the profession of law means not having respect for the law itself. Where do you think the law comes from? Do you think painters write the laws? Of the 55 men who attended the Constitutional Convention that created this country, 35 of them were lawyers or had legal training.

I don't particularly have much respect for people who are ignorant of our system of laws, and the roles played within, to be quite honest. And they sure change their tune when the need a lawyer.

3. The move toward Obama in this economic crisis is not based on any rational or sound reasoning.

Actually the move was already happening before the economic meltdown, but it has increased. Hard to say what would have happened in the absence of the economic meltdown, but he has been consistently ahead in the polls for a long time now. The election went from favorable to Obama, to a slam dunk for Obama. Hopefully that will carry into the Congressional races as well. We'll need a supermajority in the Senate to prevent the GOP from gridlocking the system with their bad faith antics.

It's based on panic.

It actually appears to be based on a sense of accountability, as in "Republicans deregulated the finance industry, and now we are going to hold them accountable." Panic explains the big gain Bush got after 9/11. This is anger more than fear.

Besides, McCain is to blame for his own failed campaign. Choosing Palin alienated the moderate Republicans and especially the Independents. Going negative did so even more. He has only himself and his advisors to blame for their poor decisions. I just read that McCain is pulling his negative advertisements regarding Ayers and Wright, because independents are trashing him over them. He was an idiot to make them in the first place. He deserves to lose.

As I argued before, Democrats are, minimally, equally culpable

But it happened on Bush's watch, and he certainly had the political capital to change the rules to prevent it. Inaction is guilt too.

Your factcheck site is very similar to my own prior analysis here, so I guess I agree with it.

The *real* smoking gun was keeping the interest rate too low. That fueled the whole bubble. If the Fed has raised the interest rate at the start of the bubble, the whole thing would have been prevented. Of course, that would have "cooled off" the economy, and we can't have that.

But the real worry is that if Obama gets elected and we end up with yet another rubber stamp congress

Dems are the party of fiscal conservation now. They want to reduce the deficit, and increase the standard of living for as many Americans as possible. I trust they'll do the right thing, assuming they get enough of a majority in the Senate to act. I assume the GOP strategy for the next 4 years is to prevent as much legislation as possible, in hopes the country will fail again and the voters will blame the Dems. Winning elections is certainly far more important to the GOP than having a strong America. This is a big part of the reason I detest the GOP so much, they are a slash and burn party.

[Mulu]

Anyway, McCain knows he's lost the election. Obama has set up an operation to plan for the transition to the White House, selecting cabinet members and planning policy. McCain has no such operation. Right now his only option, other than hoping for a hail Mary, is to save face and set up a candidate for 2012. I hope they go with Palin, she's a guaranteed loser.

[fluffmonster]

... is to save face and set up a candidate for 2012. I hope they go with Palin, she's a guaranteed loser.

As she is now maybe, but if she stays with the national scene there is no reason she can't repair her information deficit in the next 3 years. Ignorance is one of those things that, by itself, is easily undone. One could argue that her personality may not be one disposed toward actual learning and I would not necessarily disagree with that, but I wouldn't count the status quo on Palin being maintained.

[ç i p h é r]

Or realize that there are a thousand legitimate reasons why he may have had to cancel. He did schedule to meet with them in the first place, so his intent was to do so. Otherwise why bother?

I dunno. Maybe because it seemed like a good photo op until the defense dept. killed it? Either way you slice it, he didn't go. He didn't make the time. The crux of the problem is, he made the time for needless campaign speeches to citizens of other nations. That's what makes his decision suspect. But you're not going to admit that while you keep worshiping the man.

Yeah, grades, like they mean anything.

Tell that to Albert Einstein, Dwight D Eisenhower, and a lot of other people who didn't necessarily perform well at certain points in their lives but nevertheless made enormous, lasting contributions to the world.

In the grand scheme of things, yes I'd say that grades don't matter; Certainly, not for gauging one's intelligence. The irony is that guys like you only look for ways to avoid military service to begin with and you don't even know the first thing about the Naval Academy. Yet here you are pouncing on something you at best don't comprehend and at worst loathe.

More to the point, so you disrespect every Judge and Justice that's ever sat on the bench? They all start out as lawyers, you know. So do most Senators. Not having respect for the profession of law means not having respect for the law itself. Where do you think the law comes from? Do you think painters write the laws? Of the 55 men who attended the Constitutional Convention that created this country, 35 of them were lawyers or had legal training.

I have little respect for the legal profession because of the manner in which it is often used today. If you really think it's an admirable profession, then you've been living in a bubble for a few decades.

The legal system is so broken and the profession has become so corrupt and unethical that frankly I think every citizen should be required legal training simply to be able to defend themselves from lawsuits without sacrificing their life savings to do so. At the moment, only the rich and powerful can actually afford to litigate, which is how we end up with things like SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) that ultimately harm the average citizen through no fault of their own.

I don't particularly have much respect for people who are ignorant of our system of laws, and the roles played within, to be quite honest. And they sure change their tune when the need a lawyer.

Good for you, but having no respect for the legal profession does not mean having no understanding of the law. For your sake, I hope you'll never need a lawyer.

We'll need a supermajority in the Senate to prevent the GOP from gridlocking the system with their bad faith antics.

Gridlock only occurs when people on either ends of the ideological spectrum cannot come to a sensible agreement. It's not a bad thing. It prevents the extremes from overrunning the nation. What you really need to consider is if you've elected the right people to govern.

It actually appears to be based on a sense of accountability, as in "Republicans deregulated the finance industry, and now we are going to hold them accountable."

Since you didn't bother to read the article, let me kill two birds with one stone here, first the Democratic talking point about "evil deregulation" and second, what you said earlier about Bill Clinton being forced into signing the Financial Modernization Act of 1999.

Code: Select all

Bill Clinton (Sept. 24): Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill. ...You know, Phil Gramm and I disagreed on a lot of things, but he can't possibly be wrong about everything. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence. But I can't blame [the Republicans]. [b]This wasn't something they forced me into.[/b]

So will you please stop banging on that tired drum? The facts are there. Now just accept them.

Dems are the party of fiscal conservation now. They want to reduce the deficit, and increase the standard of living for as many Americans as possible. I trust they'll do the right thing, assuming they get enough of a majority in the Senate to act.

ROFL. ROFL. ROFL. Congratulations on your membership to the Mindless Masses. You don't even question your own leadership or pay attention to what they do, evidently.

[fluffmonster]

Mulu wrote:
Dems are the party of fiscal conservation now. They want to reduce the deficit, and increase the standard of living for as many Americans as possible. I trust they'll do the right thing, assuming they get enough of a majority in the Senate to act.

ROFL. ROFL. ROFL. Congratulations on your membership to the Mindless Masses. You don't even question your own leadership or pay attention to what they do, evidently.

What does 'fiscal conservatism' mean? If it means a budget closer to balance, then the real data show clearly that since and including Reagan the lone democratic administration has a far better record. This isn't spin, this is the plain numbers. If it means holding down government spending growth, then its the same story...the lone democratic administration in my reference period held down spending growth more than any other.

Looking forward, by the budget measure the numbers say that Obama's plan is more fiscally responsible, while by the spending growth measure McCain would be more fiscally responsible.

If you think you have evidence to the contrary then by all means lay it out. If you think there is a better definition of fiscal responsibility (though any but budget balance will have a weak case, and good luck on effective measurement of an efficiency-of-spending measure), then let's hear it and the evidence you have on it. Otherwise, you are committing the same mindless demogoguery you are accusing Mulu of.

[Mulu]

I dunno. Maybe because it seemed like a good photo op until the defense dept. killed it?

Or maybe something came up. This accusation regarding changing his schedule, something politicians do on a daily basis, is as lacking in foundation as they come. The defense department didn't "kill" anything, btw, as has been previously established, so you are just repeating right wing lies here. Surely you can do better.

But you're not going to admit that while you keep worshiping the man.

What exactly am I not admitting? I admit he changed his schedule and didn't visit the vet's as he had originally planned to. So what? I cancelled an appointment with a hispanic client yesterday, does that mean I hate latinos? And if it does in your mind, why would I have made the appointment in the first place? The problem here is you are totally lacking any ability to establish causation, therefore you are simply making groundless accusations.

Yeah, grades, like they mean anything.

Tell that to Albert Einstein, Dwight D Eisenhower, and a lot of other people who didn't necessarily perform well at certain points in their lives but nevertheless made enormous, lasting contributions to the world.

They are the exceptions, not the rule. Now, obviously McCain has done very well in his life despite his near last place finish at the academy, and in fact I don't see it as that big of a deal, especially given how long ago it was.... But, you can't claim that it's absolutely meaningless, especially given his rhetoric about how he "knows how to win wars." Oh really? Prove it McLast-at-academy, McI-got-shot-down. General Clark was right about him.

In the grand scheme of things, yes I'd say that grades don't matter

Have you ever been to your high school reunion? I didn't notice that the low GPA folk were doing better than the high GPA folk. The high GPA folk were doctors and lawyers and engineers, the low GPA folk were working at WalMart, or as office staff, in the trades if they were lucky. Of course there are exceptions, but as a general trend, being smart creates more opportunity and allows you to pursue those opportunities better.

The irony is that guys like you only look for ways to avoid military service to begin with and you don't even know the first thing about the Naval Academy. Yet here you are pouncing on something you at best don't comprehend and at worst loathe.

ROFL. It's true, the squids don't impress me as I was bound for the Air Force Academy myself , until a disabling injury took me out of the running. I come from a military family, one that goes all the way back to the Revolutionary War. Your assumptions about me are as bogus as your assumptions about Obama.

I have little respect for the legal profession because of the manner in which it is often used today. If you really think it's an admirable profession, then you've been living in a bubble for a few decades.

The legal system is so broken and the profession has become so corrupt and unethical that frankly I think every citizen should be required legal training simply to be able to defend themselves from lawsuits without sacrificing their life savings to do so.

Actually the bar has quite stringent ethical requirements, far more than any other profession. What you have done is believe a common stereotype that is baseless. One of the strongest arguments I can make in court is that an opposing attorney has acted in an unethical fashion. It's very rare, and when it happens it's a showstopper. It's like I tell my students, your credibility is a commodity you only get to spend once. Your ignorance of the legal profession is shocking given your apparent business background.

At the moment, only the rich and powerful can actually afford to litigate

Baloney. None of my clients are rich. Most of them are middle to working class, one of them is retarded and as poor as it gets.

, which is how we end up with things like SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) that ultimately harm the average citizen through no fault of their own.

Those lawsuits are usually done by big business by their in-house corporate attorneys. It is the corporate executives that are the unethical ones in that equation, though their counsel are equally guilty. Most jurisdictions have anti-SLAPP laws anyway, with hefty penalties.

Good for you, but having no respect for the legal profession does not mean having no understanding of the law.

It's plainly apparent you have both.

Gridlock only occurs when people on either ends of the ideological spectrum cannot come to a sensible agreement.

It can happen as a political digging in of the heels as well. I happen to agree with your underlying theme that bipartisanship leads to the best and fairest results. The problem is that won't be the GOP's goal.

So will you please stop banging on that tired drum? The facts are there. Now just accept them.

Well, Clinton did threaten to veto it originally, but he's being a politician and owning it now. *shrugs*

That doesn't change the rather obvious fact that Republicans have been the party of deregulation for decades, *and* that Bush could have changed any policy Clinton had in place regarding Fannie and Freddie. In fact, he purposefully continued Clinton's policies because the housing market was driving the whole economy. Driving it right over a cliff, of course, but W isn't known for his foresight.

[Mulu]

... is to save face and set up a candidate for 2012. I hope they go with Palin, she's a guaranteed loser.

As she is now maybe, but if she stays with the national scene there is no reason she can't repair her information deficit in the next 3 years. Ignorance is one of those things that, by itself, is easily undone. One could argue that her personality may not be one disposed toward actual learning and I would not necessarily disagree with that, but I wouldn't count the status quo on Palin being maintained.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of her right wing radicalism, but either way you are correct, people can repair both their ignorance and their image given time, and it will be a whole new world in 3 years, as far as the majority of memory-less Americans are concerned.

Still, I'm very proud of myself for calling this race back in August of 2007, on these very forums no less.

[ç i p h é r]

Or maybe something came up. This accusation regarding changing his schedule, something politicians do on a daily basis, is as lacking in foundation as they come. The defense department didn't "kill" anything, btw, as has been previously established, so you are just repeating right wing lies here. Surely you can do better.

Maybe it did. But again, any way you slice it, he didn't *make* time to visit *wounded* veterans of wars we are *currently* fighting, but he *made* time to give *meaningless* speeches before foreign nationals, which surely took a *lot* more time to organize and prepare for than a visit to a hospital.

If those veterans mattered enough to him, he would have rearranged his campaign schedule. Pretty simple. And that's the problem. It *didn't* matter enough to him yet he's the guy who's going to be their Commander in Chief. If there was a sudden crisis that called him away, that would be understandable, but they've provided no such explanation.

What does 'fiscal conservatism' mean? If it means a budget closer to balance, then the real data show clearly that since and including Reagan the lone democratic administration has a far better record. This isn't spin, this is the plain numbers. If it means holding down government spending growth, then its the same story...the lone democratic administration in my reference period held down spending growth more than any other.

A fiscal conservative is someone who advocates smaller government, lower taxes, less federal spending, fewer earmarks and entitlement programs...

The idea that the Democrats are fiscal CONSERVATIVES is ludicrous. Let's look at Obama. He wants to raise taxes. He wants to nationalize healthcare (creates yet another entitlement program). He has set aside almost $1B in earmarks in his brief legislative tenure. He wants to intervene in free trade. This is just off the top of my head. That he is a fiscal conservative is a ludicrous assertion. He is a big government guy. Plain and simple.

[paazin]

Mulu, would hell freeze over if I jumped party lines and voted for Obama?

Nekulor, I can't understand you - you should be a rabid obama fan


As the saying goes "Not to be a liberal at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head"