Second Presidential Debate: Feel the Breeze

This was a debate of missed opportunities for both candidates, but especially for McCain. In a post this morning, I laid out what I thought each candidate should do tonight. So how did they do?

Obama: 1. Focus on last eight years and tie McCain to it. I don’t think Obama was as effective tonight on this as he was in the first debate. He tried to make the case against the Bush administration, but failed to connect. Some of this is due to McCain’s attack of the Democrats for Freddie and Fannie and McCain’s plan to renegotiate mortgages. Obama did not answer the accusation or counter McCain’s proposal, thus failing to effectively tie McCain to Bush. In fact, Obama seemed unprepared to answer the Freddie/Fannie link at all.
2. Avoid Senatorial talk. Obama did an excellent job of communicating his message tonight. Even though he consistently talked beyond the time limit, he had moments in almost every answer that could be reduced to a sound bite, which is important in the way we evaluate candidates today. However, when discussing foreign policy, Obama sounded very unsure of himself. He came closest to his rambling style in this part of the debate. On genocide, he only said that we would probably “consider” action, when I think the better response would have been that we would take action. He was also shakier on Iran than he was in the first debate and continues to ignore the success of the surge.
3. Don’t wander off script. He remained on message tonight, ignoring for the most part any attack by McCain. While remaining on script is good, I think he missed an opportunity to answer McCain’s critiques. And his discussion on limiting people’s energy use opens the door for people to view him as too heavy handed on government regulation. While people want to conserve to save money, I don’t think most Americans want to be told the government will limit their usage of energy. A misstep by Obama, but nobody probably caught it.

McCain: 1. Drill, Baby, Drill on economy. I thought he was going to get there, but I think he fell short of adequately selling his policy. He didn’t answer Obama’s shifting position on energy, although the debate format didn’t really allow for too much back and forth like this. But when asked which was most important to address: entitlements, energy, or health care, McCain swung and missed badly. I felt the breeze in my living room. He should have hammered home the need for energy reform here. How lower energy costs would make everything else more affordable. How our economy began to tank when gas prices went up. His answer of doing all three took away from an effective advantage I believe he has over Obama on energy. That was a missed opportunity for McCain at a time he cannot afford missed opportunities.
2. Explain why lower taxes are good. I think McCain did a good job explaining this, whether it connected with the voter is another matter. Also, on connecting with the voter, McCain seemed completely oblivious to the question of what sacrifices need to be made during these economic times. He focused solely on earmarks and government spending, when I thought he had the perfect, I mean fastball down the middle, to re-state an effective part of his convention speech – serving something greater than your own self interest. Where was the answer for personal responsibility, for shared sacrifice that he spoke of before? Huge mistake here as Obama basically used it in response, taking away a good point McCain has made in the past.
3. Attack Obama’s worldview. This was another missed opportunity. I don’t think he effectively called into question Obama’s philosophy. He began very well, attacking Obama and the Democrats for their support of Freddie and Fannie and subprime mortgages. I thought he would continue in this way throughout the debate, but really didn’t too much more. Maybe he was gun shy, but I think he should have done more here. While not directly addressing Obama’s worldview, McCain’s answer to the final question was one of his best. The question: “What don’t you know and how will you learn it?” McCain said while he doesn’t know what will happen when he’s president, he does know from his experience how to handle the unknowable situations when they arise. For people questioning Obama’s readiness to be president, McCain presented himself as the one most ready to lead.

Overall, I thought of the three debates so far, including the VP one, this was the worst. Nothing imaginative about the questions, nothing new from the candidates, except McCain’s government buy out of mortgages. Nothing to change the trajectory of the race. While this is to Obama’s favor, I don’t think he shined tonight either. Midway through the debate, I kind of thought to myself, “These are the two best candidates we could come up with?” Thinking back over the primaries, the answer is sadly, “Yes.” But it seemed that neither candidate wanted to step out and lead tonight. Obama is in prevent, running out the clock; McCain is either unwilling to go after Obama in person, or is hoping for an unforced turnover, because he didn’t do much to change the game tonight either.

Tom Brokaw did a fine job as moderator, although instead of wasting time talking about how the candidates were wasting time, he should have cut them off once, then they might have gotten the picture. But I thought his follow ups were the best questions of the night, while the “undecided voter” questions could have been submitted by Lehrer or Ifill from the first two debates. I don’t see this debate changing the lead Obama currently enjoys. With only one debate left, if the polls still show Obama with an eight point lead next Wednesday, look for a brutal debate in the final showdown between the two candidates.