McCain to Attend Debate
Senator John McCain has announced he will attend tonight’s debate in Oxford, Mississippi. He said earlier this week that he considered the economic crisis to be the first priority, not the debate, but he now decided to debate Senator Barack Obama nonetheless.
Meanwhile, some political commentators and especially Democrats are criticizing McCain for putting his responsibilities as Senator for Arizona before his responsibilities as a presidential nominee.
Tonight’s debate was supposed to be about foreign policy and national security, but it may very well be about the economy as well.
Although McCain is more experienced than Obama, recent polls suggest that most voters expect Obama to win. According to a recent CNN poll 59% of those asked said they thought Obama will perform better.
This means that the expectations and therefore the risks are higher for Obama. If he’s not able to win, or not able to truly appear stronger and better informed than McCain, he’ll have a problem. McCain, on the other hand, is in the position he enjoys; he’s the underdog.
If McCain performs well - meaning that the result of the debate will be either undecided or that McCain won - he’ll probably do better in the polls.
There’s a lot at stake in tonight’s debate.
Question to our readers; who do you think will win?
My answer: I think it will be pretty undecided. Obama is not a strong debater, McCain should be better. In the end, McCain is much better at debating than giving speeches, which is Obama’s strength. However, since McCain is older and perhaps less energetic, he’ll look less good on TV.
The result: a draw.
With his recent stunts, John McCain has demonstrated he is too erratic to be President. What he is going to do if he’s President and a major crisis hits, suspend the Constitution?
For the europeans: which tv channel does air the debate, and does anyone know whether there will be an online stream? if so, it would be nice if you could post it here. thank you
Murat, here in the Netherlands it’s channel number 3. You can also watch it online, I am sure.
From what I understand, Kevin, he seems to have left the House GOP with a blueprint to go forward and make a deal- and then it sounds like he plans to return to DC right after the debate’s over.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that there’s some element of political theater in his actions, but the Democrat overreaction and attempts to claim that he ‘blew up the deal’ are beyond ridiculous too. It’s patently obvious that there really was no deal (House GOP were resisting- that’s where the real fiscal conservative wing of the party is these days- and Nancy won’t bring it to a vote until she has enough of them on board even though it would pass without them.) But the Dem leaders claimed there was a deal, just so that they could posture that McCain blew it up by "injecting presidential politics."
I think the outcome of the debate will vary depending on how it plays out. It’s already been announced that, though the initial topic was foreign affairs, there will be a natural straying from this point given the economic woes.
The further the debate strays from foreign affairs the better it will go for Obama. On foreign affairs I fully expect McCain to mention his POW status once every three answers and the surge once every 4. On that same note Obama will say "a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged" once every two answers and "bring the troops home" once every four. How well they do is unclear, but I give McCain the edge because narrative mandates he have the upper hand in all things military and he is notably more confident on these subjects. Obama, unless his staff has beaten it out of him, may try to look nuanced and be trounced.
But if the subject strays to economic woes, Obama has the upper hand. At present the narrative is that he’s doing better on the economy. In the actual bailout they are mostly in agreement with one another, though they will compete to see who can seem more outraged. In the end though, McCain’s long record of advocating derregulation will work against him.
I don’t expect any one of them to crush the other, and you may be right that it ends up a tie, but I think the upper hand depends on the subject matter. I give McCain a very slight upper hand because of the official debate subject and lowered expectations.
Either McCain or Obama could benefit by pulling an Arnie Vinnick and using their opening statement to throw out the original topic and suggest that they debate the economy instead.
Won’t happen though. Their advisers would have a moose.