If John McCain wants to win a debate against Barack Obama, he needs to forget his rehearsed lines and show the American people that he has the better plan to manage the federal government. McCain said last night that the American people knew him. They do. So that means he can cut the heroism talk, the reminders that he was a POW, and the broad themes about honor and responsibility. People already associate him with those themes. What they don’t know is whether he will be better in the job than that exciting new applicant. He needs to show that he will be.
In the first debate last night, McCain seemed poorly rested. He is usually quicker with the lines and sharper with the policy. He was neither quick nor sharp, and so he fell back to using lines from his stump speech. Across the stage, Obama was well rested and well prepared, and — like a good lawyer — he effectively rebutted many of McCain’s charges while presenting a carefully plotted attack.
Obama was impressive in his demeanor and poise. He was polite and respectful to the host and to the older gentleman at the other podium, which worked well for such a young candidate going up against a gray-haired war hero. He calmly and methodically pressed his case against McCain, scoring points even where he had no business scoring them. McCain seemed surprisingly unprepared to take down Obama even on those points — such as corporate taxation, health care, and outsourcing — on which Obama left himself open.
I think a lot of Republicans watching last night had to be thinking that Mitt Romney would’ve done so much better in that debate. That is not to say that Romney would have been a better nominee overall. But he would’ve handled the questions on the economy, taxes, and the bailout much more deftly in the first matchup against Obama.
In the remainder of this campaign, McCain needs to transition from McCain the leader to McCain the manager. I wonder if he’ll be able to do that, or if he even sees the need to do that, before November.
Comment from Mark Harris in Exeter: “If John McCain wants to win a debate against Barack Obama, he needs to forget his rehearsed lines and show the American people that he has the better plan to manage the federal government.”
1) McCain did show he is ready lead - He that last year and most of his life
2)” reheasred lines?” Who needed 3 days to prep? Surely, you gest, it wasn’t McCain
3) The media is corrupt as are the people who favor an inexperianced Ill. Senator.
Comment from Will in Merrimack: The first 15 minutes of the debate was tremendously painful to the loyal Republican cadre. McCain was willing to cancel the campaign to engage the debate over the Wall Street bailout. Yet, in the very beginning of the debate, where ever the casual observer knew it probably would be the first question asked, McCain seemed ill-prepared. Your observation about McCain quoting public policyfreely is appropriate. McCain should have been engaged in the minutia of the bailout from the get-go. Being engaged in the language detail would have forced him to mention the middle-class, an obvious fact that the Democrats appear ready to bludgeon to death over. All Obama had to was show up, smile and not put his foot in his mouth which he did. Point: Obama.
Comment from Bob in Portsmouth: I feel much the same about last nights debate. Personally, I feel the red and blue labels are no longer applicable in our party system any longer. True leadership and statemenship are the order of the day, for thinking Americans.
2 more points: I would like to see the ideas and plans of these 2 fine gentleman make there way into polices of our administration, regardless of who wins in november.
http://www.pickensplan.com/ and http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/
God Bless America !
Comment from Gene J. Murray in Amherst, NY: Certainly have to agree with Mr. Cline’s fair and accurate assessment of the initial debate. Essentially, this race is Mr. Obama’s to lose because he is by far the best and brightest. The McCain-Palin team may have more of a chance to reach the summit of Mt. Everest than convince the voting public that they are sharper than Mr. Obama. One has to wonder if Mr. McCain will even bother to show up for the next two debates. Guess he could always cower back to Washington, DC to grandstand on the issues facing Wall Street instead of daring to climb back into the ring with Mr. Obama for Round 2. Wonder what the leader of the McCain-Palin team is going to do, duck and hide or “bring it on”?
Some recent random thoughts:
The $700 billion bailout proposal from President Bush and Henry Paulson looks an awful lot like a Hail Mary pass to me. In this case, a Hail Hank. I’m thinking that’d make a good nickname for a hastily put-together government bailout plan from now on. “Oh, looks like the administration is throwing a Hail Hank.”
I’ve been to a few Old Home Days. And I’ve not once seen an old home at any of them.
Is there any public park in Manchester — including school playgrounds — that isn’t stained by graffiti? I’ve seen graffiti on the inside of tube-shaped children’s slides. It’s gotten entirely out of hand.
What if the bailout doesn’t work?
Here’s an idea. Instead of bailing out those who poorly managed their money, what if the government just gave more to those who made responsible decisions? Might that have a more beneficial impact? You chose to rent instead of take out a loan you couldn’t afford — and you can prove it? Here’s some cash! You managed your company responsibly, turned a profit and kept your people employed? Here’s some cash! Do it again!
Johnny Pesky might have his number retired. Does that mean the Sox can erase Gary Gaetti from the official team history?
Comment from Fergus Cullen in Wolfeboro: The Gilford Old Home Day features a tour of the Rowe House, which is set up like the 1800s. It is s a funny concept to explain to people from other parts of the country.
Comment from Fergus Cullen in Wolfeboro:The Gilford Old Home Day features a tour of the Rowe House, which is set up like the 1800s. It is s a funny concept to explain to people from other parts of the country.
Rep. Jim Ryan, D-Franklin, is in jail for failing to pay restitution for four counts of theft by forgery. After Ryan’s arrest in August and before his resignation from this House seat last week, Gov. John Lynch, Sen. Peter Burling, and Rep. Leigh Webb called on him to resign. That’s it.
State Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley never issued a public call for Ryan to resign. Nor did Reps. Paul Hodes or Carol Shea-Porter, or Senate President Sylvia Larsen. House Speaker Terie Norelli didn’t either, though she did strip Ryan of his Transportation Committee chairmanship and his co-chairmanship of the Committee to Elect House Democrats.
Shea-Porter heavily criticized Jeb Bradley back in 2006 for not pressing Speaker Dennis Hastert’s resignation after the Mark Foley affair. She portrayed Bradley as a party hack uninterested in protecting the public. Well, as one of the top-ranking Democrats in New Hampshire, where was she on the Jim Ryan arrest?
Comment from Susan Bruce in Jackson:One of these things is not like the other.
Carol Shea-Porter is our US Congresswoman, and as such, has no business telling the leaders of the NH House how to do their jobs. It wasn’t right for the GOP Congressional delegation to jump on Ray Burton a few year ago. We elect members of Congress to represent us in Washington, not run the state legislature.
I’m also a little confused as to why you’re taking Carol to task for a legislator who is from outside of her district. You’re really desperately clutching at straws in your attempt to somehow paint this is being Congresswoman Shea-Porter’s responsibility.
Over at TAS, I have a column arguing that the lack of leadership and good governance from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid has sent the approval rating of Congress into the gutter and the approval ratings for Republicans up to roughly even with Democrats. That’s quite an accomplishment when you think about it.
Here’s a bit from the piece:
A Gallup poll out this week is revealing. It found that only 47 percent of Americans say they have trust in the legislative branch of the federal government. That’s the first time that number has dipped below 50 percent since Gallup began asking that question in 1972. The same poll found that only 18 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing vs. 31 percent who approve of the job President Bush is doing.
There is good reason for those low ratings. When voters swept Democrats into power two years ago, they expected that the party would deliver on its promises. It hasn’t. Instead of leadership and statesmanship, we got gamesmanship. Instead of governing, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid embarked on a two-year political campaign.
We have run two op-eds in the past few days, one Friday and one today, from women who are very upset with John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Some readers might be wondering why we did that.
First, we do try to run a lot of op-eds with which we disagree. The opinions expressed about Sarah Palin in those op-eds certainly do not represent the view of this editorial page. Second, we have been inundated with anti-Palin op-eds written by women. It was obvious that Palin has tapped a vein of genuine resentment and hostility here, and I wanted a representative sample of that opinion reflected on the op-ed page. (You can see in the comments that a lot of women have been writing in to agree with these op-ed writers.)
I chose to run the submissions from Hope Ullman and Stephanie Curcio because they were the best-written and least hateful of the bunch. That is, they resorted less to name-calling than the others did. Still, there was name-calling — “yokel” and “fool.” But that’s nothing compared to what some others wrote of Palin.
I don’t claim to know what sparked this animosity, but it is passionately felt and somewhat widespread. I think a lot of people were unaware how sharp a reaction Palin has drawn from some left-leaning women. (I heard several times at the Obama rally in Manchester on Saturday, “I hate Palin!” uttered by a woman.) I thought it was important to capture that reaction on the opinion page.
Comment from Kim in Warner:The reason most of these women seem to hate Sarah is because they are so intensely jealous of the fact that she made it unto a ticket and Hillary didn’t. I’m sure that they were more than ready to vote for Hillary, until she not only lost the top spot to Obama, but he didn’t pick her for second place. Well, I wouldn’t have, either, and I think most Democrats know why. True, it was a tough decision because you can’t be 100% sure what the ultimate outcome would have been. She might have united the party by being in the #2 spot but would she have been happy enough there to actually make for a smooth running term? Could she and Slick Willy been able to keep their opinions to themselves about how THEY would have handled things? Yep, I believe that the Dems were concerned enough about the “working relationship” that Obama could NOT have Hillary as his VP (I would have hired a food tester, amongst other things). So it would have been OK to have Hillary for a VP but not a Republican. Gee, and women accuse men of having double standards…
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is attacking Jeb Bradley for voting “up to 85 percent of the time” with President Bush. Carol Shea-Porter used that attack pretty effectively in 2006. But I wonder how well it works this year when the Democratic Congress is even less popular than President Bush and Carol Shea-Porter voted with Nancy Pelosi more often than Jeb Bradley voted with Bush.
If we accept that Jeb Bradley voted 85 percent of the time with President Bush, we must also point out that Carol Shea-Porter has voted nearly 100 percent of the time with Nancy Pelosi. She is even proud of that record of loyalty.
I know that Bush is hugely unpopular, but I’m not sure at this point that an 85 percent solidarity with Bush is worse than a 100 percent solidarity with Nancy Pelosi. In the battle of the poodles, Shea-Porter certainly is a bigger party poodle than Jeb Bradley. Bush’s approval rating is about a dozen points higher than Congress’s, so if I were Shea-Porter I think I’d be careful about making the blind party loyalty argument.
Comment from Conrad Hermsdorf in Hooksertt:May I pose this question again? Who does Carol Shea Porter reprersent, the people of New Hampshire or Pelosi and the Democratic Party?
Comment from Bill B. in Pelham:The first thing to remember is that when Shea-Porter got elected one of the things she said was that she was independent and for the average person. Yet she voted with Pelosi all the time and not once did she have any of her own agenda or have an independent voice for NH. She is a fraud and a Democrat rumpswab. Not to mention a few weeks back we were told she was coming to my place of employment only to have her cancel the day she was supposed to come. Without any explanation or a word from her since. I hope she goes back to Rochester where she belongs because she has not done this state any favors.
Every four years (at least) rock and pop musicians ask Republican candidates to stop using their songs. This year, the list of performers unhappy with free publicity includes Van Halen, Heart and, of course, John Mellencamp, as Politico has reported. They’re all upset that the McCain campaign has used their songs at events — even though the campaign bought licenses to use those and thousands of other songs.
I think Republicans should finally make a deal with left-wing musicians who make such complaints: We’ll stop using your music if you stop taking our money. If these artists cannot handle their music being enjoyed by Republicans, there is a simple solution: Stop selling the music to Republicans. Don’t let Republicans buy your albums, John Mellencamp. Stop admitting Republicans to your concerts, Tom Petty. If your music is for Democrats only, then slap that sticker on the cd cover and require proof of voter registration before ticket, cd and download purchases.
This would also free up all musicians to make whatever political statements they want to make during concerts. Hey, no Republicans in the audience means you can rip away at President Bush or John McCain or America in general and no one will complain.
Will these sanctimonious musicians be willing to cut their audience by a third or more to stand on their left-wing principles? Don’t hold your breath. John Mellencamp, who officially opposes using songs to sell goods and services, nonetheless sold a song to Chevy to help it hawk pickups. Then he blamed record companies and radio stations because he had to sell a song to a car maker to make money. It never occurred to him that perhaps he’d sell more music if he wrote better songs. Nor, apparently, did it occur to him to pass up the money for his principles.
Comment from Robert M Tarr in Manchester: Well I guess Mr. Mellencamp would like to rewrite his song; “Rain on the Scarecrow” which talks about farm loans and in the begining of the video three farmers say they don’t need more loans, they need other help. Maybe these artist will also sue YouTube for having thier videos shared by millions of users around the world? Where will it all end? Oh thats right, as a Republican I can’t use the songs for my campaign even though I bought them on ITunes and burned them to a cd to use during my run for State Rep. Visit my channel “Tarr4Rep” and see some of the videos/songs there, OOOPS! I forgot I am a Republican and Mr. Mellencamp may not like that….Sorry, John.
Comment from Bill Brewster in Pelham:How true your statments are. They want it both ways and then whine when it is not what they think is ok. How many of those same rich crybabies are willing to pay higher taxes on their millions? How many of them realize that they only show their ignorance when they spout off their political views at shows?
I was a victim of that at a recent Melissa Etheridge show. I did not go there to hear her support for as she put it “The first American black president”. Too bad that statement is only partly true. I have loved rock and roll for as long as I can remember, but there are more than a few I would not go see because they lace their shows with political agenda. They should be honored that their songs are being used and heard. They are greedy, money grubbing whiners and they need to play their music and keep their political opinions to themselves!!
Comment from Kevin in Baltimore: My favorite is the Dave Matthews Band. They have played gigs for Obama, Edwards, etc., and also did the vote for change tour in 2004, though I’ve never noticed them openly campaigning during their shows.
I usually wear my Bush/Cheney 2004 shirt to the concerts just to tweak all the liberal college kids.
I’ve seen a lot of Obama rallies in the past year and a half, and I haven’t seen Obama as aggressively negative as he was this past Saturday in Manchester. He usually has a few lines attacking President Bush. Heck, even Republicans have been known to do that. But he’s clearly being directed by his staff to go on the offensive against McCain. I say he’s directed by his staff to do this because it’s apparent that going on the attack does not come naturally to him.
(Notice the expression.This is Obama’s aggressive face.)
The crowd ate up the attacks, though. They loved the line about McCain not being an agent for change because he’s been in Washington for 26 years. Unlike, say, Joe Biden, who’s been in Washington for 35 years. But hey, who’s counting? They loved the attacks on “special interests” and Washington insiders and McCain being just like Bush — although McCain has worked with Democrats more than Obama has worked with Republicans and has gone against his party more than Obama has gone against his.
It wasn’t the kind of speech-making for which Obama has become famous. This was red meat Democrat activist stuff, not the lofty prose of a non-partisan reformer. So if you weren’t a Democrat or someone who leans hard that way, there wasn’t much in this speech for you.
The weather was beautiful, though, and Veterans Park was full of people. I have no idea how many were from Manchester or even New Hampshire, but I did run into a good number who had come from Massachusetts. I talked to several Obama campaign activists who said they came in from Massachusetts. Some were too young to vote. In fact, I found a lot of high school kids (mostly girls) there. They were by no means the majority, but there were notable numbers of them.
Go to enough Obama events, and you get the feeling that for some people he’s replaced the Grateful Dead. I continue running into ex-hippies and young 20-somethings with dreadlocks or quasi-hippie clothing who wound up in New Hampshire from San Francisco or Chicago or New York or some other far-away place. They follow Obama around the country, going from rally to rally. Some of them are selling Obama trinkets. Others seem to be simply along for the ride.
When Obama got off the stage and worked the front of the crowd, I saw multiple women crying. They reminded me of the old footage of the early Beatles concerts. They truly were overcome with emotion. Obama directed that at least one of them get a copy of one of his books, which Reggie Love was carrying for that purpose. Obama would find someone to give a book to, and Love would give it.
I’ll have some other observations, including some fun with vendors, from the rally later when I’ve got more time to post.
When trying to drum up votes from undeclared New Hampshire voters, it’s probably not a good idea to send door-to-door an argumentative Massachusetts resident whose idea of persuasion is to attack the vaguely stated general political preferences of the person whose vote she is trying to score and spout several wild conspiracy theories, including that the military exists for the sole purpose of killing civilians (presumably to wipe out other cultures). Remember, you’re trying not to make your candidate look like the champion of the leftist fringe.
Rep. Paul Hodes sits on the House Financial Services Committee. That’s the committee that writes the legislation overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So, should Hodes really be accepting $4,000 in contributions from Fannie Mae’s PAC in the past two years?
Carol Shea-Porter claims that she supports new domestic drilling for oil and that this is not a flip-flop. Her office says she’s always supported domestic drilling. Trouble is, I can’t find a single instance in which she has publicly stated any support for new domestic drilling prior to June of this year when she announced her support for the so-called “use it or lose it” legislation that would require oil companies to produce oil from already leased federal land or lose the lease. (Oil companies are already required to make their leases productive, by the way.)
What I have found is an apparently deeply felt animosity toward oil companies.
In 2006, Shea-Porter was not proposing more domestic drilling for oil. But she did have an energy plan to lower oil and gas prices. She wanted the federal government to create an “Apollo” program for alternative energy research. Gas prices were high in the summer of 2006, and her proposal was to pour massive amounts of taxpayer money into a research program that she admitted would take a decade or more to produce results. (Now she complains that expanded domestic offshore drilling wouldn’t produce any new oil for at least a decade.)
In the October, 2006 WMUR-TV debate between Shea-Porter and Jeb Bradley, she was asked about her alternative energy “space program.” The questioner noted that gas prices had dropped since Labor Day and asked if we really needed such a big research program to combat rising gas prices. She answered by suggesting a government conspiracy to lower gas prices before the election:
“First of all, I think it’s more than a happy coincidence that oil and gas prices have dropped two weeks, three weeks before an election, and I think most Americans know that it’s a very temporary measure,” she said.
She reiterated her support for her “space program” and did not mention domestic drilling at all.
The next week, on NHPR, she said this when asked about how she would deal with high oil and gas prices:
“We could start by throwing the oil men out of our halls of Congress and taking them out of the lobbying and writing our legislation. That would be a very good beginning. And we could have our congressmen stop accepting money from oil companies because that would look better too.
“But in the meantime, how about some vision here? How about some belief in us as an American people? How about believing that we have the know-how, the can-do attitude, that we still can make a difference here?
“We can’t use the Department of Energy. He (Bradley) knows they are over-run by special interests. That’s not going to work. What I’m calling for is not a new department of energy. I’m calling for a program just like we have at the space program where we take the best and the brightest minds and we put our shoulders to the wheel and we say ‘this is a national security crisis. We have to free ourselves from energy independence’ (sic) and we work at it.
“In the meantime, we’ll create jobs. We’ll create technology we don’t even know about yet. We’ll perfect what we have. It’ll be education. It will be progress. We’ll have benchmarks that we can measure every two to four years.
“What if we don’t make it in a decade? Well, at least we tried. At least we’re working on something. We need reform down there. We need people who still believe in the can-do power of the American people and believe that if we set our shoulder to this we’ll get this job done. We have to get it done.”
Republicans have “drill here, drill now!” Shea-Porter has “Well, at least we tried.”
This July, Shea-Porter announced her support for the “use it or lose it” legislation. She accused oil companies of knowingly keeping oil in the ground to keep prices high.
“They (oil companies) know that’s something there. You know the argument is that they don’t know, but why are they continuing to renew their permits if they don’t believe they have it (oil) there?”
In a radio ad in July, she said, ” Let’s face it — big oil has our economy, our energy policies and our politics in a strangle-hold.”
I think Shea-Porter’s attitude toward oil companies is similar to the feelings of this guy, who was pretty upset by these oil cans.
I’ve asked Shea-Porter’s office for an example of her supporting domestic drilling before June of this year. So far I haven’t heard back. I’ll let you know if they come up with something. If anyone knows of an example, please let me know.
Barack Obama will visit New Hampshire Friday and Saturday, his campaign just announced.
