Oct 07 2008
Second presidential debate
Are you watching The John McCain/Tom Brokaw Show tonight?
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., answers questions from John McCain Debate moderator Tom Brokaw as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., listens during a townhall-style presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
Note the caption on the photograph above. I did not edit it. That is the way it was written by the Associated Press. Read it carefully. I don’t think it contains an error.
Liberal media. Not tonight, my friends. Not tonight.
Senator Obama is holding his own under very, very difficult circumstances. He is definitely giving the better, most intelligent and well thought-out answers. John McCain is a very angry man and it really showed tonight. (He actually referred to Senator Obama as “that one.” Really?) That is, my friends, the way I see it.
I hope Bob Schieffer does a better job of hiding his bias in the next debate than Tom Brokaw did in this one.
Brian Williams: “One month from tonight we will be talking about the new President of the United States.”
Indeed.
Update: The morning after…
Post-debate polling favors Obama over McCain
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – John McCain dismissively called rival Barack Obama “that one,” Obama mocked McCain’s “Straight Talk Express,” and both left the debate stage to return to the campaign trail Wednesday.
CNN’s national poll of debate watchers found that 54 percent said Obama did the best job, compared to 30 percent who said McCain performed better. While 51 percent of those polled said they had a favorable opinion of McCain, unchanged from before the debate started, 64 percent said they had a favorable opinion of Obama, up 4 percentage points from before the debate.
By more than a 2-1 margin, 65 percent to 28 percent, more people said they found Obama more likable than McCain during the debate, according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey.
On the question of who won the debate, a CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll of uncommitted voters found a similar result. Forty percent said Obama won, 26 percent said McCain won, and 34 percent thought it was a tie.
Much like the first debate, I don’t think a lot of minds that were already made up were changed last night. I think a few people who were sitting on the fence were knocked off the fence and onto Obama’s side. And, though most people do not agree with me, I still think Tom Brokaw displayed a lot of pro-McCain bias in his moderating. (Didn’t he retire once already?)
If you missed the debate and want to see it, C-Span has posted it on YouTube. Click here. If that C-Span logo in the middle of the video bothers you, MSNBC has also posted the debate here.
9 Responses to “Second presidential debate”
another rerun of the Same Old McSame…
more Stall and Scandal instead of Honest Answers and
a Real Plan to Fix America’s Ills.
this was a straight slapdown.
Here’s hoping this is Buh Byyyeee McSame
Your recap is spot on. McCain behaved like a pompous, desperate, condescending old man, while Obama showed tact, patience, and intelligence…seems like a no-brainer, but you never know.
peace,
mike
livelife365
While I agree with your assessment of the debate, I don’t think Brokaw is a McCain supporter. Brokaw is a reknown liberal. If he showed any bias towards McCain, it may have been to cover up his preference for Obama.
That is a really amusing caption. I didn’t get to watch the debate from China…not sure if I really want to either. Neither candidate excites me to do anything more than ignore them.
I didn’t get to see the debate because I have been very sick. But, I will just go ahead and say it.
Every single person I know personally that is against Obama is also white, baby boomer generation or older, and, is prejudice.
They cover up their reasons for not liking Obama with all of the garbage and lies that have been spread about him.
But the core is pure prejudice. It’s a sad thing to truly see how very much it still exist in America today.
Obama is so obviously more intelligent, savvy, informed, calm under pressure, and the list goes on and on.
People simply can’t bring themselves to support him due to pure ignorance and prejudice.
I live in a a very rural and very white state. And I see it everyday all over the place whenever I make note that I am for Obama.
Thanks for the post.
In regards to the debate last night, I thought it was boring. I did not learn anything new about either candidate.
I wish they would change the format and let the two talk directly to each other, rather than letting the moderator control everything.
another snore-fest IMHO. I didn’t learn anything new about either candidate. Neither one of them actually answered the first three questions. They both stayed on talking points for more than half of the debate before they even actually truly answered the questions posed to them.
While I wouldn’t necessarily say that Brokaw showed actual bias in the way he handled the debate – I would have to agree that it appeared there were more direct questions to McCain from the audience than to Obama. What I did notice is that Brokaw had absolutely NO control over that debate at all.
Also – I still don’t see where you guys are coming off as saying McCain appears angry. From what I saw – they both appeared frustrated at times with the other – but angry? I didn’t see that in either of them.
Overall – a very piss poor debate.
I keep hearing over and over that the debate was boring but I felt that of the two debates so far this has been the best simply because Obama called McCain out when he was misrepresenting the facts.
I think Obama again and again proved why he would be the best choice for Commander in Chief by being tactful and maintaining his composure even after being referred to as “That one”.
The candidates have a major difference in their leadership styles: McCain tends to say, “Follow me because the other guy can’t get it done” while Obama says, “Follow me because I can get it done.” Ideally, the candidates should say, “Follow me because i will help you get it done” … in any case, of the two of them Obama demonstrates a better leadership mentality