Final Presidential Debate – McCain recites Name, Rank and Service Number

Written by Jeff Rendall on 2008-10-16T04:31:11+00:00

By Jeffrey A. Rendall

Hard as it is to believe, last night marked that last time the presidential candidates will officially meet on the same stage to debate the salient subjects of our times – and for those of us waiting for some kind of ‘breakthrough’ from John McCain, we’re sorely disappointed.

Simply put, McCain failed to put distance between himself and George Bush – or even Obama himself.  It’s no secret that McCain’s lacked an overall theme in his campaign -- and last night, nothing new was revealed.  McCain again mentioned ‘greed’ in his first answer, and many hearts sank at the realization that there was going to be no epiphany – McCain was still McCain.

McCain did achieve one of the most effective moments of the debate when he looked straight at Obama and said “I am not President Bush.   If you wanted to run against Bush, you should’ve run four years ago.”

Obama looked stunned -- needless to say, we didn’t hear much about ‘Bush’ the rest of the evening.

And McCain did effectively re-argue the same things he’s been talking about for months, and even seemed most animated and passionate when bringing up Bill Ayres.  But McCain once again failed to mention perhaps his strongest ‘association’ weapon against Obama – Jeremiah Wright – instead leaving the Republican portion of the viewing audience virtually begging him to say something about it.

McCain, ever the ‘honorable’ warrior, appears determined to go down with his honor.  With pundits and supporters across the country imploring McCain to fight harder to distinguish himself – in the end, McCain is left with himself.  Only McCain can answer if that’s good enough, and perhaps the answer won’t come until November 5th.

Conservative voters might have a different opinion, but then again, we never really expected much from McCain to begin with.

In the end, McCain’s answers to voters’ concerns consisted of the basics – not too far removed from ‘name, rank and service number.’  McCain didn’t bow to the demands of his captors in Vietnam, and he’s not going to give in to others’ pleading to try and open things up in his final campaign, either. 

McCain’s vowed time and again to ‘fight for you,’ but that’s not the feeling that conservatives engender from watching him go against Obama.  McCain was a little feistier in this final forum, but he clearly wasn’t willing to play all his cards.

For Obama’s part, he should relish the opportunity to ‘debate’ McCain, because he knows from the opening introductions that he can’t lose.  Obama knows that McCain’s ‘honor’ won’t allow him to bring up his racist, anti-American pastor (the biggest liability on his side), and any ‘negativity’ will only reflect poorly on McCain.

McCain’s history and character preclude any kind of personal attacks, so Obama doesn’t have to worry about preparing a list of names to conjure up from McCain’s past – and if McCain mentions the specters from Obama’s history, all he has to do is change the subject.

Obama’s honed the line from his debates with Hillary Clinton – whenever William Ayres or anyone else is mentioned, he automatically pushes one of his automatic answer ‘buttons.’  “Well, we need to get back to the issues that the American people care about.”

Well, Barack, we care about who you’ve hung with in the past – but your ‘change’ message sure sounds nice, and you’re really, really good at talking about it.  Throw in an opponent who seems all-too-willing to let terrorist dogs lie, and you SHOULD be measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.

Did McCain ‘win?’

John McCain clearly had his best showing of the debate season, but it could hardly be called a ‘victory.’  At best, McCain proved that he could hold his own against a man who’s known for his ability to work with words – and just as he did during the Republican primary season, he demonstrated that he’s a quick thinker and possesses a quirky sense of humor.

But he didn’t ‘win.’

A win would’ve been achieved by a clearly articulated plan to deal with the economy – something along the lines of the plan advanced by Newt Gingrich.  Conservatives would probably disagree on some if not all points of the plan, but at least there’d be a starting point.

McCain’s policies aren’t basic enough for people to understand.  When both candidates are tossing out programs that run into the hundreds of billions, it all seems to run together after awhile.

And McCain still hasn’t learned his lesson that he can’t out-appropriate a liberal – it’s a losing argument from the start when you’re a Republican trying to argue that your version of Big Government is superior to a Democrat’s.  There’s just no credibility there.

I may be wrong, but I don’t recall hearing much about free markets or ‘capitalism’ – the latter having become a dirty buzzword in recent weeks.

John, Barack, and ‘Joe the plumber’

To McCain’s credit, he brought ‘Joe the plumber’ into the conversation early, during the first question segment on the financial crisis.  For those who’ve been away from major media for the past several days, Joe the plumber refers to the shiny-scalped aspiring small business owner from Ohio who confronted Obama a few days ago about his tax plan.

Obama told Joe that he wanted to ‘spread the wealth around.’

McCain critiqued Obama’s words and brought Joe into the discussion time and again (even speaking to Joe when looking directly into the camera), but Obama’s ability to talk himself out of any difficulty carried him through most of the tight spots.

Obama’s complete command of his talking points allows him to deflect any criticism of his policies or his record.  Obama deserves credit for his extremely polished presentation – clearly he and his handlers have spent hours honing canned answers to any potential fissures in his platform or background. 

A little preparation goes a long way, with a mainstream media waiting to lend its assistance.  Toss out ‘Bush’s failed policies’ or ‘change,’ and you’re connecting with the audience.  Obama’s trance-like responses are redundant and fuzzy, but he doesn’t need to say anything more substantive because he looks like he knows what he’s talking about.

For example, you knew precisely what he was going to say when asked about William Ayres:  ‘Despicable acts; 40 years ago; I was eight years old; I was never in his living room.’  Forget that fact that most of Obama’s defenses are completely irrelevant or completely untrue – he sounds convincing saying it, and for most people sitting in front of their TV’s, that’s all they need to know.

Obama is in Bill Clinton’s league when it comes to bending the truth – anyone for a new nickname, ‘Slick Barry?’

Taxes, revisited

The candidates did everything but arm-wrestle over the tax cutting issue, with McCain calling Obama on his promise to ‘cut taxes for 95% of Americans,’ which sounds great but is practically impossible.

Obama has worked hard in the past few months to claim that he’s a tax-cutter, borrowing a tactic from Bill Clinton’s run in 1992 – a blatant populist appeal to voters’ anti-government sensibilities.  The fact that he has absolutely no record to back up his claims seems to be getting lost in the discussion, and McCain’s not nearly aggressive enough to press home the discrepancy.

Where McCain did put Obama on the defensive was when he asked “Why would you want to increase anyone’s taxes right now?” -- a question that brought forth a feeble response from Obama.  If Obama conceded that point, he might have to admit that raising taxes is never a good idea – but in times of economic strife, raising taxes on the productive class is a recipe for disaster.

Overall, McCain is more credible on taxes, as most Republicans would be.  But Obama keeps hammering the ‘middle class’ part of his tax program, trying to appeal to the broadest swath of voters.  McCain also could have made the point that many of Obama’s ‘cuts’ would end up going to people who don’t pay taxes at all – essentially, they’d be receiving checks without any liability.

That’s called welfare – the worst kind of barefaced income redistribution – and McCain missed a chance to ‘educate’ voters on the differences.

Interestingly enough, neither candidate addressed what proposals they’d specifically cut to trim the growing national debt.  As he’s done in every debate, Obama promised to go over every program and eliminate waste – a similar line of reasoning given by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in their respective campaigns.

McCain proposed an across-the-board spending freeze – “that’s a hatchet, and then I would get out the scalpel.”  He also reiterated his stump promises to go over the defense department and cut the waste.  McCain is credible when he talks about spending cuts (and Obama isn’t), but there’s still some question whether the politically tough choices will be adequately taken care of by either man.

With the annual national debt now hovering in the $1 trillion area, it’s a shame that our politicians seem to be giving it very little credence.

Abortion and Education

Two issue areas where I thought John McCain made some good points were abortion and education.  Debate moderator Bob Schieffer finally brought forth a subject where McCain could showed some ‘Life,’ but even here, he didn’t completely wipe up the floor with Obama.

Schieffer asked:  ‘Could either of you nominate a Supreme Court Justice who disagrees with your position on Roe v. Wade?’

McCain emphasized that he would have no ‘litmus test’ for selecting judges, which is probably a good thing when it comes to confirming them in a heavily Democratic Senate.  He also brought up his role in the ‘Gang of 14,’ and mentioned that Obama was given an opportunity to join and declined.

McCain emphasized that he was for Life and he’d look for jurists who would strictly interpret the Constitution.  Good points, all.

But he missed an opportunity to pit Obama’s prior ‘above my pay grade’ remark against him.  Obama’s gaffe (made during the Saddleback presidential forum in August) is one of the more memorable quotes from the marathon presidential campaign season, one that many would recognize, and highlights his cold disregard for the views of Pro-Life voters.

McCain is speaking directly to Independents at this point in the campaign season, but there was no better chance to show that Obama’s a cold, calculating liberal who’s ‘pay grade’ won’t allow him to take a stand on one of the most controversial issues of our culture.

McCain also failed to press the case when Obama denied being against Illinois’ ‘born alive’ act.  Obama pulled out one of those canned answers here as well, trying to make his position less extreme than it really is. 

Truth be told, Obama’s abortion views, and his promises to pursue the ‘Freedom of Choice Act’ as his first presidential priority – place him on the fringes of the issue.  Not even Bill Clinton was so completely in the tank for the anti-Life movement – and while McCain made some headway here, he could’ve done better to expose Obama’s radical positions.

McCain did much better when it came to education, though the issue’s placement near the end of the debate deadened some of its effectiveness.  McCain said he was for charter schools and wouldn’t ‘throw money at the problem,’ two good things on the road to reform of the education establishment.

He also defended ‘vouchers’ when Obama brought it up, and specifically citing the Washington DC program that’s been a glaring success in giving parents a choice in their children’s education.

McCain would’ve done well to emphasize these views repeatedly on the stump, because here he can speak directly to Americans about reforming yet another broken system that’s been ruined by liberal interference.

McCain’s discussion of education was one of his strongest points of the evening.

‘Senator Government’

The most memorable ‘gaffe’ of the evening may actually benefit John McCain, as he referred to Obama as ‘Senator Government.’  If only McCain had coined the phrase months ago, it very easily could’ve stuck.

The final bell

Both candidates were left standing after their final debate, which leaves the advantage with Barack Obama. 

McCain blew his best chance to break open the race by running against Washington and siding with House conservatives on the Wall Street bailout. 

It’ll be left for us to wonder if such a distinction would’ve made a difference.  McCain remains the best choice for conservatives (if they actually want a chance to win the election), yet even if he prevails it will be at least four years before a real conservative would be able to compete for the White House.  As to the rest, we’ll find out late on November 4th.