Editorials on the McCain-Obama debate
Tribune Media ServicesThe following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Thursday, Oct. 16:
MISSING THE MOMENT
Wednesday night's debate on the Long Island campus of Hofstra University was Americans' last chance in the 2008 campaign to see their major-party candidates for president side by side. Our hope is that Hofstra's professors demand more candid and distinctive thought from their students than John McCain and Barack Obama were asked to display in front of their countrymen.
This was the liveliest of the three debates, yet paradoxically the least satisfying. The paramount issues of the moment circle the American economy and its interactions with financial markets. Earlier Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average had plummeted more than 700 points _ the latest volatile market move to shake people's confidence. Yet Wednesday night's discussion of Americans' fears and hopes was maddeningly thin: Both men quickly retreated to rehearsed talking points, and the moderator didn't prod them back to center ring.
We eventually heard Obama say that he doesn't take orders from one-time radical Bill Ayers. And we heard McCain say that he's not President George W. Bush. But at too many junctures _ the rote discussion of energy policy was especially frustrating _ what could have been a genuine clash of philosophies descended into tired repetitions of the same stump speech excerpts that voters have been hearing for months.
We've been saying all year that these two men are exceptional candidates. But their three debates haven't elicited from either of them the frankness and passions we've seen both of them display during discussions with the Chicago Tribune's editorial board.
They came closest Wednesday night when they discussed tax policy. Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio _ Joe the Plumber _ is going to get a lot of questions in the next few days about his finances. McCain finally found a way to put a face to his contention that Obama's tax increases on people making more than $250,000 would hit some just plain folks. Joe is a guy in a T-shirt who politely confronted Obama the other day. He's buying a business and he says Obama would hike his taxes and he doesn't like it. If Joe's story has legs, Obama may be doing some explaining.
We'll be surprised if this debate moves the public opinion polls appreciably; most viewers saw what they expected. We do, though, cast one vote for a new debate format in 2012. Americans deserve to see their candidates pushed more forcefully to abandon their prepared spiels and speak from their hearts.
___
The following editorial appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Thursday, Oct. 16:
THE ATTACK DEBATE
John McCain went into the final presidential debate on Wednesday looking for a game-changer, the need to reverse plummeting fortunes as measured by polls and likely fueled by national economic difficulties that do not favor members of the party now possessing the White House.
Time _ and an election _ will tell, but our guess is that McCain missed the mark if that was his goal. Repeated references to "Joe the plumber," whose fortunes Barack Obama's tax policies would allegedly harm, and his use of a past quote from Obama that he wants to "spread the wealth around" didn't do it, even if this last one might succeed in continuing to fuel the charge from the fringe that Obama is a not-so-closeted socialist.
But in this debate McCain was obviously trying mightily for that game-changer. The elements: William Ayers; insinuations that Obama was impugning the people at GOP rallies because he might resent that some of them shouted "terrorist" or "kill him," though this last remark may have been directed at Ayers; and ACORN.
Obama deftly explained the charges. On his associations _ he was 8 when Ayers, now a professor of education and active in community affairs in Chicago, was in the Weather Underground. Obama represented ACORN in a case in which the federal government sided with ACORN.
Obama's intent in this last debate was simply to not slip and to draw out the differences in his and his opponents' policies.
If that was a goal, he succeeded. But so did McCain, at one point noting another difference: "I am not President Bush."
They sparred often. McCain is clearly more of a free trader. Obama says he wants to emphasize fair trade as much as free trade.
On health care, they differed on whether McCain's tax-credit plan or Obama's mandate of health care for children would be better.
On abortion and Roe v. Wade, both said they have no litmus tests for Supreme Court nominees. But differences again: McCain says Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and abortions should be matters for state action, and Obama believes the decision was rightly decided and would no more want states to interfere with abortion rights than he would want them to meddle with the First Amendment.
Got that Joe? Vote accordingly.
___
The following editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Thursday, Oct. 16:
MCCAIN FAILS TO BLUNT OBAMA MOMENTUM
John McCain, down in the polls, desperately needed a game-changing moment Wednesday night. Though more aggressive than in two prior debates with Barack Obama, he never really came close.
All eyes were on McCain, in deep trouble less than three weeks out, and he turned in his best performance of the three debates. Though both candidates were frustratingly vague about what they would cut amid our economic crisis, McCain was much more specific. This is a substantive and important difference, though neither adequately answered concerns about the exploding deficit.
Yet nothing he said _ not even a brief and wincingly uncomfortable foray into Bill Ayers territory _ threw off Obama, who generally appeared commanding and, frankly, presidential. The far more experienced McCain had to communicate that he is the more stable and secure choice to lead the nation through the present storm.
McCain came across as brittle and petulant at times; Obama cruised through with his effortless unflappability. One would not have been surprised to have seen the Republican lose his cool like Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men." At least that would have provided some drama amid the canned rhetoric.
McCain's need to turn up the heat may have led him to undermine the best case for his candidacy. He really was in a Catch-22. Absent an Obama stumble, there was almost no way for him to win Wednesday night. And so he didn't.
Given Obama's solid lead in the polls, the precipitous decline in the markets and the remorseless march of the campaign calendar, McCain will need a miracle now.
___
The following editorial appeared in Newsday on Thursday, Oct. 16:
DEBATE, TAKE THREE
John McCain and Barack Obama's across-the-table meeting at Hofstra University on Wednesday night was the most engaging debate of the three, but it marked the end of their face-to-face encounters. Now we're in the homestretch in this year's presidential race.
They spent much of the 90 minutes talking about their clear differences on the fiscal crisis, taxes and health care _ both through the prism of "Joe, the plumber" _ energy, trade and, finally, Supreme Court appointments. We hope in the weeks to come they will expand on their selection criteria for justices.
But they spent too much time last night defending negative ads, and sparring about Obama's association with William Ayers, a 1960s radical, the focus of attacks by the McCain campaign. Rep. John Lewis' (D-Ga.) comparison this weekend of the negative tone of McCain's campaign to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace's segregationism was unfortunate, and we're glad Obama took the opportunity to say it was inappropriate. As for Ayers, who is now a college professor, Obama pointed out that other reputable people, including some prominent Republicans, have shared board memberships with the former radical. Now, let's put those sideshows to rest.
With three weeks to Election Day and the nation beset by economic crisis, there's no time for such diversions. The focus should be on the candidates' core beliefs, policy prescriptions and visions for the future. McCain and Obama should keep the tone civil and the critiques honest. Voters are ill-served by the poisonous partisanship of recent years. It has left Washington unable to forge solutions to many pressing problems. Obama and McCain have each said they get it. If so, they need to set that tone now. How they campaign in the waning days of this contest will reveal a lot about how each would govern.
Taking that high road will be easier for Obama, since he's the front-runner. But he has to resist the urge to coast in an effort to avoid gaffes. The nation needs strong leadership. For McCain, it's a tougher call. Conventional wisdom has it that the best strategy when trailing in the polls is to attack. For him, the next three weeks will be a time to prove that he can rise to a tough challenge, stay focused on the issues and present himself as a leader. In the days ahead, voters need to see the best of both men vying to be president.
___
The following editorial appeared in the Sacramento Bee on Thursday, Oct. 16:
THIRD DEBATE: A DISAPPOINTMENT
The last of three presidential debates couldn't have taken place in a more dramatic context.
Since the first debate three weeks ago, Americans' concerns have turned into fears as the nation's economic situation has worsened. Yet the two candidates did little Wednesday night to express any urgency or to get beyond their long-held talking points.
Economists are saying that the slowdown will be long- lasting and that we haven't yet glimpsed the bottom. The debate itself took place on the day that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced that the U.S. government would use $250 billion of taxpayer funds to buy equity in financial firms, an attempt to halt the credit freeze threatening to bankrupt companies and eliminate jobs.
Yet the candidates were still talking about last week's rescue plans and old disputes about whose tax cuts are bigger and better.
What a disappointment. What an opportunity missed. As Americans watch their retirement accounts and kids' college savings accounts evaporate, few have little understanding of what's really happening. That's where both candidates failed them.
The American people are looking for reassurance that the next president can be flexible and think beyond orthodox approaches to deal with this historic upheaval. They found no such reassurance last night.
This lack of engagement on the crisis before us made the attacks on old associations look all the more petty and pathetic. Moderator Bob Schieffer put out the bait for candidates to take and McCain, in particular, bit hard.
The result was that much of the debate was devoted to attacks from McCain and responses by Obama on topics that included the '60s radical Bill Ayers, a speech by Rep. John Lewis and the activities of ACORN, a community organization that registers low- income voters.
In other circumstances, spending time on these subjects might have made sense, at least politically. On a day when the stock market plummeted yet again, they seemed simply irrelevant.
So as we come into the final days of the campaign, caution is the watchword for Obama and attack for McCain. The economic crisis? That, it seems, can wait until January.
___
(c) 2008, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Not for publication or retransmission without permission of MCT.