John McCain’s chances of being the 44th President Of The United States are looking dimmer and dimmer. As of today, October 28th, Barack Obama leads Sen. McCain in all nine of the major national tracking polls, of which the slimmest lead is projecting Sen. Obama ahead by four points. Additionally, most pollsters project Sen. Obama’s electorate count to be somewhere in the mid 300’s, while Sen. McCain is dwindling in the high to mid 100’s.
I don’t think that John McCain’s campaign can be blamed for losing this election. Granted, they haven’t been perfect, but they haven’t screwed up nearly as bad as they could have.
Republicans, (especially conservatives) always knew that 2008 wouldn’t be easy. Conservatism’s main vehicle has been without a steering wheel for the past eight years. Conservatives have elected an administration that is more concerned about governing by power than by principle, and we are now looking at the possibility of paying dearly for our mistakes by electing an extremely liberal president.
The way things are going, it looks like we will not only have a liberal president, but a liberal congress as well. If Republicans fail to defend their senate seats in New Mexico, Virginia, New Hampshire, Alaska, or Mississippi, we could be looking at a Democratic filibuster-proof majority. We are essentially looking at a Pelosi, Reid, Obama triumvate for at least the next two years.
Unfortunately, this is our legacy to inherit. This is our consequence for electing George W. Bush.
I think that everyone can agree that last night’s final presidential debate was the most entertaining general election debate that we’ve seen in years. As I’ve said before, however, most people have already made up their mind about who to vote for, and naturally their preconceived notions will determine their opinion as to who actually won the debate. Most Republicans will say that John McCain beat Barack Obama to a pulp, while most Democrats will say that John McCain was desperately attacking Obama, and that Obama withstood it.
Being a Republican, I am obviously one of those people who think that McCain clearly won. I honestly wish that Sen. McCain went into the first debate with the same mindset that he had last night. If he had, then Republicans would have a clear lead in the polls right now.
I thought that Sen. McCain ’s most effective line was when he said, “Sen. Obama, I’m not President Bush, if you want to run against President Bush, than you should have ran four years ago.”
In my opinion, Sen. McCain touched on everything that is wrong with the prospect of an Obama presidency. McCain got the final word in this last debate, time will only tell if it will matter.
How does a candidate “win” a presidential debate? On Friday, Sept. 26, John McCain and Barack Obama met for their first presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi. The debate was supposedly to be focused on foreign policy, where John McCain would have a natural advantage over Barack Obama. However, the debate didn’t turn out as anyone would have expected. Firstly, Obama didn’t embarrass himself, and secondly, over half of the debate was focused on the economic crisis.
The general verdict from the media was that the two candidates battled to a draw, with Barack Obama emerging as the winner by default. I, however, came away with an entirely different impression. It seemed to me that Sen. Obama was on the defensive for most of the ninety minute debate. He had to withdraw some of his arguments, and used the lame debate tactics of agreeing with his opponent, ( “Sen. McCain is absolutely correct.), and countering his opponents attacks with a simple, “that’s not true.” Initially, I couldn’t understand how anyone who watched the debate could think that Barack Obama won.
Last Thursday night, Sarah Palin completely discredited my prior judgement. This time, it was my candidate who was emphathizing with the audience. My candidate was looking good on T.V, and my candidate was effectively communicating to the audience. Once again, I thought my candidate had won the debate.
It wasn’t until the post debate analysis on T.V that I began to notice a double standard. All three political correspondants on the major networks declared Joe Biden the winner, apparently using the same standard that I had judged the first debate by. In this race’s debates, the nature of the candidates running has ensured that there will be no clear winners or losers. In the remaining debates, I think that it is safe to predict that Barack Obama will be more effective at communicating, and John McCain will prove more effective at actually debating.
On the Saturday Night Live post debate analysis, I think that Amy Poehler was right when she said that “whoever you already liked” won the VP debate.
The way things are going, it looks like we will not only have a liberal president, but a liberal congress as well. If Republicans fail to defend their senate seats in New Mexico, Virginia, New Hampshire, Alaska, or Mississippi, we could be looking at a Democratic filibuster-proof majority. We are essentially looking at a Pelosi, Reid, Obama triumvate for at least the next two years.