LiveExamining the Second Presidential Debate

October 7, 10:47 PMPop Culture ExaminerDominic Patten

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"What don't you know and how will you learn it?" - that's the last question of the night and it came online.

Barack Obama says it's all about opportunity knocking and that's his and America's story

John McCain says it's all about an unexpected future and that's his and America's story.

That's it.

No TKO for anyone, but I think John McCain did just enough to keep himself in the race.

Both Senators and their wives are working the crowd but neither are connecting.

Maybe we got spoiled by Bill Clinton never not connecting.

Just for a brief second the two candidates and the wives spoke to each other. A human moment in a pretty static debate ... and why do we call tem debates, they're not.

They should have played a West Wing repeat and not these same campaign policies and posturing we've heard all summer.

Check out Dominic Patten's coverage of the Vice-Presidential debate here.

Check out Dominic Patten's coverage of the first Presidential debate here.  

5th UPDATE

If John McCain knows how to get Osama Bin Laden, as he just said he does, then he should go to the Pentagon and tell them how to do it - otherwise he's just Richard Nixon in 1968 promising he has a secret plan to end to the Vietnam War. Turned out Nixon, who got elected in '68, didn't have a plan, he had a slogan.

And what's amazing is Sen. Obama is so caught up in his talking points that he either didn't hear what McCain said or he's decided to just skate past it. Vladimir Putin is not a popular guy on that stage in Nashville tonight. Obama doesn't want to call the 21st century Russia an "Evil Empire," as President Reagan did of the USSR. McCain says "Maybe,"  and then comes back with a very reasonable answer. The Israel/Iran question and would a President McCain or a President Obama do if the Jewish state attacked the Islamic Republic is a tough one because it is a question whose answer is already being written. Both McCain and Obama thanked the questioner for his service in the Navy but neither of them will say Iran is further along the nuclear route than most of us think - that genie is way out of the bottle, direct talks with Iran or not.

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4th UPDATE

I just noticed that John McCain is wearing a red tie and Barack Obama is wearing a blue tie.

Wow - I bet some consultant was paid a lot by both campaigns to make that dumb call.

What we need is a President who would wear the opposition's colors without making a big deal about it. In the symbolism of things, that's reaching across the aisle.

McCain's quip about needing a hair transplant kinda fell flat in his Healthcare policy chat.

Now, Obama is getting personal. Bringing the story of his mother and her death into his Healthcare discussion.

John McCain says Healthcare is a responsibility.

Barack Obama says Healthcare is a right.

The Republicans don't seem to get that as times get harder, Healthcare becomes even more important for many familes.

And I think McCain needs to give up on the jokes, they're just not working.

Opps, we're into the Foreign Policy segment which right now means "when to go in and when to not," as McCain just put it. With troops all over the world and pushed to the limit already and with the economy the way it is, we might not be going in anywhere.

Obama's turning McCain's words back on to him, saying he doesn't understand the Arizona Senator's judgement. McCain's back to writing notes when Obama speaks, not as much as before, but a bit.

Both candidates agree that America is a "force for good" and it seems that they both agree that George W. Bush hasn't been one.

There's a McCain Doctrine? There's a Obama Doctrine? Both of them seem to be about doing Good with the mightest military force in human history but being cautious and quoting Teddy Roosevelt. Now they are out doing each other on who know's where the real War on Terror is and whose going to take out who first

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3rd UPDATE

"Unfair burden sharing"?

I know what that means, but I don't really know what it is supposed to be telling me?

Whoa - did John McCain just compare Barack Obama to Herbert Hoover? Yes, he did. Is he taking the gloves off, is he going to go for the Tax TKO?

Say what you like about this campaign, these are two very smart men in Nashville. It seems like a long time since there's been two candidates who could really speak about their times and the issues ... I just wish they'd start calling on each other and drop the cliches. That would be some true American Exceptionalism.

Looked like Obama was going to go all West Wing there and throw out the rules to respond to McCain's digs at him. But he backed down when Tom Brokaw got all huffy.

McCain's jazzed up - you can tell, he's hovering a bit more and not sitting down to write notes while Obama is speaking.

I gather somewhere in the math of the Obama Tax Plan, the Senator was getting his boots back in on what McCain said about him .... but it is hard to tell.

Umm ... did McCain just say that Social Security is easy to fix? Yea, so easy the last time it happened, by your own recollection, was over 20 years ago.

Both candidates seem to be outdoing each other on slamming George W. Bush. On the economy. On the environment. On ethics.

If it keeps up like this, the tally is going to be at worst a tie for McCain and at best a win for McCain and that's what he needs to keep this race a contest.

Sen. Obama just got the creation of the Internet wrong as people commonly do. The Internet wasn't invented for military reasons or to keep the government running in case of a nuclear war. That's a myth. It was created as a research resource. It should be one of the great stories of our age, like the apple that fell on Isaac Newton's head, instead it is so typically incorrectly told.

What's with Brokaw and the rules? Get out of their way Tom, push 'em together.

By the way, Sen. McCain, don't call your fellow candidate and US Senator "that one," even if you are making a point about who voted for what. It's not a good way to talk to your kids and it's really not a good way to talk to one of the two people who will be the next President.

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2nd UPDATE

Obama's talking about people not going out to dinner as much and not buying a new car. Senator, people are losing their jobs, homes and dignity - this hurt is about a lot more than a few trips to the Olive Garden. And then, like whenever candidates want to get the buffet in, Obama is pulling from his stump speech.

McCain's over there in the corner taking notes not even looking at Obama. And when he lurches out, the first thing the Senator from Arizona does is try to connect with the questioner. This Energy point of his doesn't sound like a solution but it feels like one. And answering the priority question by saying he would work on all three at the same time just like Ronald Reagan did was good. Citing Tip O'Neil, a man who hasn't been Speaker of the House for over 20 years is a bit too inside baseball.

Obama has a list. Energy first. Then Healthcare. Then Education. All earnest, doesn't feel like a vision. And, if I could hit the visual button for a sec, this isn't working as good TV. These two are acting like they are in seperate world not on the same stage.

Oh, the first Internet question from a senior. Gotta love that about technology. Has John McCain just announced a brand new spending freeze policy? And why hasn't Obama got on him about that, as his campaign likes to say of McCain, as erratic? Why are the candidates avoiding each other? Let rumble boys, let's see what you got!

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NOTE - Debate coverage will update every 10 minutes or as the candidates spar.

1st UPDATE

So John McCain's going for jokes, telling moderator Tom Brokaw that he won't be getting the Treasury Secretary gig in his administration. Senator Obama drops Warren Buffet's name and then goes right into policy.

Part of doing a townhall is talking to the people, listening to them and truly hearing them. This was how Bill Clinton took out George H.W. Bush in 1992, emoting not lecturing.

Like an old athlete, McCain is getting in close to the audience. What's he planning? He's jabbing at Obama but not yet landing that punch. Obama's weaving, taking a little poke with reminding the audience, at home and in the hall, that "not suprising" he had to correct McCain on some facts.

Not really drawing blood boys

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NOTE - Debate coverage will update every 10 minutes or as the candidates spar.

So, after all the build up, they're finally on stage in Nashville in this second Presidential debate of the 2008 campaign. Senator McCain looks tense, Senator Obama looks ready. There's about 20 questions being asked in this townhall tonight, some in the hall itself and some coming from the Internet. - expect most of them to be about the economy.

This is what interacting with the men who want to be the next President has tumbled to.

On that first question about what can be done about the economy, Sen. Obama has given a great clinical answer but once again he's too cold, he needs to pull a Bill Clinton and reach out. Sen. McCain snuck some emotion in there, speaking straignt to the gentleman who asked the first question.

Maybe this might be a lot different than we think.

Only anyone whose never seen it or wishes they never saw it, could not compare this year's election to the last season of The West Wing.

We've got the young, fresh and inexperienced minority Democratic nominee. We've got the senior and moderate Republican nominee, the biggest threat his party has ever brought to the Democratic base.

In the last season Matt Santos and Arnie Vinick faced off against each other in one debate where minutes into it, they threw the rule book out and went at it and each other directly.

You'd hope that's what Barack Obama and John McCain would do tonight but don't bet your liberal or conservative idealism on it. These two have been slugging it out in the guilt-by-association muck together for the past week. The GOP has been going after Obama for his relationship with former bomb setting Weatherman Bill Ayers from the 1960s and 1970s. The Democrats have been going after McCain, especially in this time of almost economic chaos, for his membership in the infamous Savings and Loans scandalized Keating Five back in the 1980s. I don't see them rising above that any time soon.

Check out Dominic Patten's coverage of the Vice-Presidential debate here.

Check out Dominic Patten's coverage of the first Presidential debate here.

The thing is in a rollercoater campaign, the economic crisis has put Sen. Obama in a solid lead in most polls. Not only is Sen McCain suffering in the polls, his electoral math is not adding up so he's pulling out of Michigan. All campaigns have to put their money where it will do the most good, but to do it on the day of the VP debate last week just looked weird.

John McCain needs a really good showing tonight. Barack Obama needs to find that inner Commander-in-Chief so people can start feeling it.

Both, like their airwar campaigns, are going to go negative in their own way.

The real question is how negative are they will to go in front of this townhall format of voters?

It is a bit, I know, like asking how low can you limbo? - When you know the answer is, how much would you like me to bend my spineless back?