No Country for Grumpy Old Men: My Blog on the First Presidential Debate

I believe that in this campaign Senator John McCain has the best credentials to be President of the United States, but during the first presidential debate last night in Oxford, Mississippi, he looked like a grumpy old man who could only rarely frame a thought into a complete sentence. Senator Barak Obama, whom I don’t support, came across, by contrast, as a thoughtful, intelligent person who looks at America as an ideal and wants to make that ideal better. I think that’s how Americans will view this debate: not as a boxing match, with each candidate scoring points, blow by blow and round by round, but as whole in which one candidate seemed articulate and smooth and the other looked old, tired, and, to put it as nicely as I can, a little bit like your doddering old grandpa who is always haranguing you on his favorite subjects.

The old part? Well, McCain can’t do anything about that one. His white hair and aging, aching body make him look like the senior citizen he is. The doddering part? You could see it right out of the shoot when Senator McCain had the opportunity to explain why he dropped everything and went to Washington on Thursday, and what he would like to see in a bill designed to rescue our beleaguered economy. Not a word on those subjects. What we got instead was this crotchety old guy who kept dwelling on “earmarks:” something no one in his right mind would publicly favor. Alright already, grandpa, let’s move on from this subject (picture the kids here poking each other in the ribs and rolling their eyes.)

On foreign policy, McCain was sharper and more knowledgeable than he was on the economy. But then there was that crack about Putin: “I looked into his eyes and I saw three letters. K. G. B.” I think this was supposed to be a joke, but McCain said it with an expression on his face that made him look like a mad scientist. Eeek! He’s losing it! (I said to myself.) Timing is everything with humor and McCain’s timing wasn’t there. Even his perceptive comment about Obama’s liberalism—“It’s hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left”— was not said with an ounce of good humor toward his opponent.

Obama looked the man he was: taller, thinner, younger, smoother, an ivy leaguer who is more like 21st century America than is McCain and who wears his multiculturalism like an Armani suit. I know his record shows he’s a liberal. But at this first debate he spoke about his country and its voters with great affection and talked about how he might help them. I didn’t hear McCain match this emotion once—okay, that one time when he spoke about veterans. But there are others of us out here too.

McCain harped on “the surge” in Iraq far too much, and kept calling on the name of General David Petraeus as if he had god-like qualities. Obama, on the other hand, spent far too much time crying over the spilt milk of the Iraq war. On that subject, McCain made his best point saying that the next president won’t be dealing with whether we should or should not be there but instead, “How we leave, when we leave, and what we leave behind.”

In this debate the advantage went to Barak Obama. McCain will need to relax, be more gracious, finish more of his sentences, and lighten up a bit if he’s going to do well in the next one.

But the next debate on the docket is the Vice Presidential debate and that one should be a hoot and a half. Joe Biden with his hair plugs and his Aunt Blabby mouth is always entertaining and at the other podium we have this peppy little unknown quantity from the Great White North, Governor Sarah Palin. She’s a terrific speaker when she’s scripted and she’ll be facing the original loose cannon. Can she ad lib with the best of them? I can’t wait to see what happens.

America’s Challenged Economy: Today's Troubled Tally

Federal regulators seized the savings and loan company Washington Mutual after the markets closed last night and negotiated the sale of WaMu to J.P. Morgan Chase Company. Regulators didn’t want WaMu to fail, which it was apparently about to do, because it could have cost the FDIC $30 billion, and the FDIC has just $45 billion in its coffers. Here’s the troubled tally so far ...

WaMu: Failed, seized by regulators, forced into shotgun deal with J.P. Morgan Chase. Some parts of the S & L to be operated by the federal government. Lehman Brothers: Failed last week. American International Group Inc: Feds spent $85 billion to take over last week.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley: Sunday, the government approved “emergency measures” to “stabilize” these two investment banks. IndyMac Bank: Pasadena, California bank failed in July, second largest bank failure in U.S. history (largest was last night with the failure of WaMu). Taken over by FDIC and now operated as the IndyMac Federal Bank. Deposits covered by FDIC but failure has drained FDIC’s coffers. And don't forget Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now in federal hands. Together these two mortgage giants hold $1 trillion dollars in mortgage holdings. Actually no: you the taxpayers are holding onto that bag.

On a somewhat brighter side, and just about anything would be at this point, in Florida, we had our first cool night last night—down to 64°F—in six months. It meant we could click off the air conditioners and open our windows and as we listened to the birds chip and the lawn mowers hum we could just hear the sound of Congressman John Mica (R-Florida) hollering “I told you so” all the way from Washington D.C.

To explain: when Congress Approved the bill in 1999 that repealed key provisions of the Glass-Steagle Bill—in place since the great Depression—and thus enabled banks to invest in speculative securities, Congressman Mica was one of just 86 members of the House who voted against the bill. He said then that even if the Republican leadership put bamboo splinters under his fingernails, he wouldn’t vote for this “modernization plan,” as it was then labeled. Turns out he was right in his opposition to the repeal of Glass-Steagle. Turns out this repeal is one of the reasons for the mess we’re in today.
Give credit where credit is due. Rep. John Mica looks good on this one.

Candidate John McCain Makes Another Surprise Move: Will the Debate Go Forward on Friday?

I wonder if Barak Obama will wake up one morning and wish he had attended Annapolis or one of the other service academies. John McCain may have graduated near the bottom of his class, but it appears he absorbed quite a bit of intelligent strategy between accumulating his demerits at the Naval Academy ...

When John McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate he took everyone by surprise. His action created a new political star and caused a dramatic change in the discussion surrounding which team would best govern this country. It was exactly what McCain intended. He was running against an opponent who represented a "first." McCain's unorthodox choice produced another first and made Obama's vice presidential choice look dull and predictable.

Now, as McCain suspends his campaign and returns to Washington to get back to his first job as a U.S. Senator and be part of the negotiations on the big congressional economic bailout bill, he appears to once again have taken his less experienced opponent by surprise. A startled Obama said this afternoon at his press conference that he planned to attend the debate. At 5:10 EST the Presidential Debate Commission said the debate would go ahead as scheduled. So what will happen? Will Obama show up and face a McCain surrogate? How about Barak Obama facing Sarah Palin? Now there’s an idea that has to have come from the mind of one of the Naval Academies smartest and most notorious pranksters!