The Last Debate

Well this last debate was by far the most interesting of the three. McCain was in an attack mode in his desperation. But, once again, the bulk of his remarks, and those of Obama, were repeats of former points with very little new material.

I was proud of Obama when asked how he felt about Sarah Palen as vice president, instead of attacking her lack of credentials for the job, he said, "I'll leave that to the voters". He was unflappable.

McCain, on the other hand,over and over again, showed his annoyance with Obama's remarks during the entire debate, if you can call it a debate.

Bob Shieffer did an excellent job of bringing the candidates back to the questions, time and again.

McCain tried very hard to shake Obama by suggesting that Mr. Obama would hurt the economy and many entrepreneurs, Mr. McCain said, “The whole premise behind Senator Obama’s plans are class warfare — let’s spread the wealth around,” repeating a phrase Mr. Obama had used to Mr. Wurzelbacher in explaining the rationale for his upper-income tax increase.

But I agree! Let's do spread the wealth around. People who are millionaires and billionaires won't be able to spend all their wealth in three lifetimes. Many of them don't even pay taxes since they have high powered lawyers on payroll to help them find all the loopholes.

FactCheck.com pointed out:

McCain claimed the liberal group ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history ... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” In fact, a Republican prosecutor said of the first and biggest ACORN fraud case: “This scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.” He said $8-an-hour workers turned in made-up voter registration forms rather than doing what ACORN paid them to do.

McCain claimed that Obama’s real “object” is a government-run, single-payer health insurance system like those in Canada or England. The McCain campaign points to a quote from five years ago, when Obama told a labor gathering that he was “a proponent of a single-payer health care program.” But Obama has since qualified his enthusiasm for Canadian-style health care, and his current proposal is nothing like that.

Obama did repeat a dubious claim that his health care plan will cut the average family’s premiums by $2,500 a year. Experts have found that figure to be overly optimistic.

McCain described Colombia as the "largest agricultural importer of our products." Actually, Canada imports the most U.S. farm products, and Colombia is far down the list.

McCain said “Joe the plumber” faced “much higher taxes” under Obama’s tax plan and would pay a fine under Obama’s health care plan if he failed to provide coverage for his workers. But Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher would pay higher taxes only if the business he says he wants to buy puts his income over $200,000 a year, and his small business would be exempt from Obama’s requirement to provide coverage for workers.

I thought they belabored this "Joe Plumber" reference. But as he has done in previous encounters, Mr. Obama looked right into the camera and calmly repeated his plan: “Now, the conversation I had with Joe the Plumber, what I essentially said to him was, five years ago, when you weren’t in the position to buy your business, you needed a tax cut then. And what I want to do is to make sure that the plumber, the nurse, the firefighter, the teacher, the young entrepreneur who doesn’t yet have money, I want to give them a tax break now.”

I was amused that McCain kept talking about how Sarah Palen knew all about autism. Her baby has Down Syndrome, not autism. Doesn't McCain know the difference?

And Obama incorrectly claimed all of McCain’s ads had been “negative.” That was true for one recent week, but not over the entire campaign. And at times Obama has run a higher percentage of attack ads than McCain. But maybe McCain learned a lesson not to run attack ads. Obama's campaign is much better at it and obviously more effective too.

From The Nation this observation:

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.

The most amazing remark was made by McCain, though. It was the suggestion I heard McCain make, toward the end of the debate, the idea of allowing returning soldiers to become teachers with no training or certification. This would litter our school system with teachers trained in military regimen yet many of whom are under educated and unprepared. Is the idea to completely turn our schools into armed camps? Whatever. It is just another example of McCain's obvious senility and idiocy.

But it certainly displayed the two very different temperaments of the candidates with less than three weeks until Election Day. Obama, calmly explaining his points and McCain showing impatience and sometimes even anger. It was obvious the old man was doing his best to try to control himself.