But hey, after several days of quality family fun time, holiday celebrations, and lots of food (occasionally interrupted by ritualistic fasting) in CT, it's back to business here in LA. You know, all that Phase 2 stuff I've previously been ranting about. Plus, it's almost Halloween-time, and that means: this weekend - the annual Horror Movie Marathon. Next weekend: Knott's Scary Farm. Two weekends from now: Page-O-Ween. Talk about a triple-threat.
Okay, I will give some quick thoughts on tonight's Presidential debate ... in my:
POLITICAL RANT OF DOOM:
- Personally, I was surprised that any of the political commentators even thought that McCain had any sort of strong showing at all. To me, tonight's debate was the proverbial knockout for Obama.
Maybe I'm imagining things ... but McCain seemed to come unglued tonight. I know the word "erratic" has been very overused of late, but it's the word that comes to mind in thinking of McCain's performance. I think he got off exactly one good line - the "I'm not George Bush" quip. But, and this is an important "but," - Obama's quick response to that potential zinger was pointed and cutting. Because the fact is that McCain has rarely explained to what extent his CURRENT policies are different from those of W's. Yes, in the past, he has challenged his own party. But, here and now, how exactly is his tax policy different from that of the last four years? How is his health care plan anything other than an incremental improvement? I thought Obama absolutely killed McCain when it came to health care. I mean - who honestly is not in favor of the concept of universal health coverage? If it has no effect on people who already have health insurance provided by their employer, how can you argue with the concept of providing coverage for someone who's been layed off, or for a recent college grad yet to find a job in this tough market? McCain's entire economic policy is just tired and outdated, a relic of Reaganomics that has no place in a country going through an economic crisis. McCain was actually trying to blast Obama for wanting to spread the wealth! Wow, what a crazy idea! To most middle class voters, getting a tax break at the expense of the wealthiest Americans doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. It just goes to show how out of touch McCain is - he's preaching IDEOLOGY at the very time that Americans have suffered through eight years of ideologically-driven government, which has produced failure after failure. Tonight, McCain only gave credence to the claim that his policies represent more of the same.
The other big area where McCain has only hurt himself is with the whole strategy to go negative with his campaign. To me, the line of the night may have been when Obama cooly proclaimed that the McCain strategy of focusing on flimsy character attacks says more about McCain's campaign than it does about Obama. 100% true. And McCain really got suckered on that one, because Obama knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that the in a few quick minutes he could lay to rest the William Ayers issues, so he practically invited McCain to put it on the table. Now I think it's safe to say that it's a dead issue, so ... there goes the last three weeks of McCain's campaign strategy. The crazy thing is that some pundits think that McCain's attacks tonight may give his polling numbers a boost. Are you kidding me? As I just said, Obama calmly closed the book on McCain's #1 attack issue tonight, and put the focus on the economy and health care, issues that McCain's own advisors have said they need to take the focus off of if they hope to win this election. Furthermore, McCain's attempt to turn the issue of negative campaigning around towards Obama came off as pretty pathetic. I mean, McCain expects us to feel sorry for HIM on this? Obama has leveled McCain with some tough attacks, but nothing on the level of "palling around with terrorists." Obama has presided over some spirited rallies, but has not had incidents equivalent to the people shouting "kill him" and such at McCain and Palin's increasingly mob-mentality events.
Speaking of Palin ... to me it speaks to Obama's contasting campaign style that tonight, when he could have easily railed on Palin for any number of things, from Troopergate to her rallies to her Katie Couric interview - he didn't. He did nothing but compliment her. Sure, he's well-aware that Palin is an easy target. But he didn't take a single shot at her when asked about her qualifications. I know there's some level of political maneuvering behind that decision, but on some level I give Obama a ton of credit for taking the high road, when it would have been incredibly easy not to. I don't think McCain would have done the same had he been in Obama's shoes.
But even moreso than any one issue, from an objective standpoint I really don't see where McCain gained any ground at all tonight. He had one decent soundbyte that was handily countered by Obama in a matter of seconds. Most of the time, between his broken speech, flustered look, frustrated tone, and odd facial expressions, McCain to me came off absolutely terribly tonight - truly looking like a man coming unhinged. On any given policy point, I failed to see where McCain "won" the argument at hand.
And look, I'm not just saying that as an Obama supporter. There were certainly a few Hillary-Obama debates where I was more in favor of Obama's policies but felt that Hillary proved the more effective debater. But tonight especially, McCain plain and simply got owned. The poll numbers reflect it. And the biggest takeaway on the McCain side of things was the constant and goofy references to America's new favorite blue collar hero, Joe the Plumber. Yep, to McCain's credit, he just gave SNL, Stewart, and Colbert about a year's worth of material to mine.
I never had a chance to comment on the previous debate, and last week I felt that at least McCain made a few cogent and coherant points regarding policy. I wasn't a fan of Tom Brokaw's disciplinarian moderating style (and as a sidenote, I think I've really soured on Brokaw over the last couple of weeks - I've always been a huge fan of his broadcasting but have found him extremely dry and out-of-touch-seeming in his role as a commentator, and felt he performed porrly as a debate moderator, failing to choose compelling qustions and to encourage free-flowing dialogue ...). But, Jim Schaefer did a much better job tonight, with some good and insightful questions and a well-moderated debate.
But in the end, I think the commentators are missing the point when they don't give Obama credit for hitting a knock-out, simply because his demeanor was cool and collected. The fact is, Obama seems to have confounded McCain , and ultimately, Obama's articulate delivery and consistency in tone allowed Obama to stick to his points even as McCain began to self-destruct. The next few weeks are going to be interesting, and after Al Gore and John Kerry, I'll be eternally skeptical about Obama's perceived lead until he's declared the winner on election day. But, part of me says that this is pretty much it for McCain. The TV pundits can try to be as artificially even-handed as they want, and act surprised when the polls show Obama won the debate. But people aren't stupid - there was a clear winner here and a clear contrast between the candidates. So congrats, Obama, you're on your way to the top of the mountain.
- I have to say, I thought last Thursday's episode of THE OFFICE was pretty amazing and hilarious. Unlike the much more drawn-out, hour-long season premiere, this past week's ep was tightly-packed with laughs and was a great example of a classic Office installment. I loved the ethics training seminar and thought it did a nice job of organically weaving the Michael - Holly relationship into the episodic plotline. But mostly, it was just really funny. I think Andy had the line of the night, when he presented the office with the moral question of would any of them steal bread to feed their families. Ed Helms' pompous delivery was just flat-out awesome. Rainn Wilson was great as always, and Dwight's back and forth shenanigans with Jim reminded me of some of the classic Tim / Gareth moments from the UK version. Overall, a great episode.
My Grade: A-
- Anyways, I still have two movies I need to review, but sleep calls. Check back tomorrow for much more!
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