Debatable Thoughts

Glad we're actually having a debate!

If I'm not mistaken, this debate format is better than the ones preceding other recent elections because it does seem to have more direct address between the candidates. (9:00 p.m. CDT)

It's so refreshing to hear a debate that doesn't include incorrect pronunciation of the word "nuclear." (9:05 p.m. CDT)

Great point on Kissinger and Iran by Obama! (9:12 p.m. CDT)

"Henry Kissinger has been my friend for 35 years" .... McCain is stretching for something like Lloyd Bentsen's "Y0u're no Jack Kennedy" line there, I think. (9:17 p.m. CDT)

Boy, if McCain tells us where he's been in the world one more time, I may have to ask to see his passport. Perhaps if you average the number of stamps he's got with Palin's passport, she might look like she has some international experience. (And let me say, this is a fine example of how an average is very misleading when dealing with a small number of data points.) (9:21 p.m. CDT)

Geez, Obama has gotten a lot grayer during this campaign. Sorry if that's trivial. (9:29 p.m. CDT)

McCain calls on Obama to be flexible, and implies Obama is too stubborn to be president. Isn't that the pot calling the kettle.... black. (Not to make anyone thing of lipsticks and pigs.) (9:36 p.m. CDT)

KSTP Channel 5's local news coverage of the debate is very biased against Obama -- making fairly glowing pronouncements about McCain being optimistic and forward-looking, while Obama was negative negative negative. Even their academic expert sounded biased. I didn't catch her name. (10:02 p.m. CDT)

KARE 11's coverage is more balanced describing both sides' presentations in a neutral way. (10:04 CDT)

Jill Miller Zimon from Blogher is on C-SPAN and she is very coherent. Her blog is writeslikeshetalks.com. (10:10 CDT)

A C-SPAN caller (an Obama supporter from Georgia) just said a really funny thing -- she said she felt like McCain was acting like he was in a night club, he was name dropping so much. (10:18 CDT)

Soledad O'Brien on CNN is telling about a focus group CNN ran during the debate. They were submitting their reactions to the questions as the debate went on, so O'Brien could show a graph comparing Democrats', independents' and Republicans' reactions on each question. Overall, 64% said they think Obama will win the election, and a similar number thought he had won the debate. This was (according to CNN) a mixed audience that included quite a number of independents. (10:42 p.m. CDT)

CNN is reporting some instant polling by gender and age... way more women thought Obama won (59%, vs around in the mid-40s for men), and a surprisingly high number of voters over 50 thought Obama won (I think it was 48 to 44 for Obama). (10:57 CDT)

Guess I'm going to sign off for the night. I know I did this in an inverted way... not so good if anyone was trying to read it as I was writing (hah! bet that didn't happen) but better for reading after tonight.
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And to continue the reverse order, here are some other election-related thoughts from before the debate started.

First, some letters from today's Strib. Anthony Becker of Northfield, Minn., wrote:

In 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and George McLellan continued their campaigns for the presidency, even as Confederate troops approached to within six miles of the Capitol and Sherman captured Atlanta. In 1944, in the midst of World War II, Franklin Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey continued their campaigns while France was liberated and Allied troops fought their way to the Siegfried Line.

In those times of national emergency, campaigns were not suspeneded. Lincoln, McLellan, Roosevelt and Dewey knew that this nation needed its democratic processes to move forward in good times and bad. In this current economic crisis, we need the candidates to continue to campaign, to continue to speak to the issues. Suspending a presidential campaign to confer on a Wall Street bailout is a repudiation of the processes that have made this nation great.

Betsy O'Berry of Ramsey wrote:

With John McCain announcing that he wants to postpone his debate with Barack Obama during the financial crisis, will he and the Republicans decide that we need to postpone the elections during the financial crisis? Four more years of Bush sounds more possible each day.

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This, from a wonderful blog called Indexed, which creates these types of simplified diagrams on a range of topics:


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Okay, these two aren't about the debate, but here are a couple of things on the election that I've been saving up. One about a Minnesota race, one national.

A letter to the editor, Star Tribune, from Aleks Hindin, St. Louis Park:

I was so relieved to read Sen. Norm Coleman's statement that by giving the nation's worst bankers $700 billion for their unrecoverable loans, "The government could make 10 or 20 times what it pays on this, possibly."

Of course, this crew also told us the Iraq war was going to pay for itself. But hey, we don't want our leaders to have elitist qualities like knowing what they're talking about or voting on, or learning from the past or consulting knowledgeable experts or even running their ideas by people with common sense to see if they pass the laugh test.

Also from the Star Tribune, this news brief by Bob Von Sternberg and Aimee Blanchette:

When [Sarah] Palin delivered her acceptance speech at the RNC a couple of weeks ago, she got some pronunciation help from the teleprompter for the word nuclear -- spelled out phonetically as "noo - clee - er."

Speaking sans teleprompter Friday, she referred to the nuclear power as "noo - clue - ler" -- a pronunciation made famous by the current White House occupant.

I loved finding out about this particular fact, not because it matters how she pronounces the word, but because it reveals how much her party cares that she not pronounce it the way the George W. Bush does.