Oh gosh darnit, Palin bombs, doncha know. McCain Loses.

First of all, this debate did not really matter, at all. VP debates rarely make an impact, and even this one will only have an effect of a point or two either way in the long run. After this debate is over, nobody really cares about the VPs, and the focus can (finally) get back onto the candidates.

Second, the moderator was freakin’ terribad. I’m guessing this is a response to all the criticism she had leading up to the debate about her upcoming book. I think her only follow-up questions were “Senator, your response? “Governor?”. SNL had it right

Now, on to the debate, this flow chart pretty much sum’s up Palin’s performance:

EDIT: JESUS FUCK. Does anyone know how to make it so this god damned blag doesn't cut off my pictures?

If it doesn't show, go here : http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh2/Coppatop85/random/PalinFlowchart.jpg

As I said before, all Palin had to do was not drool on herself while eating her own snot, and she would have a fair showing, and she did just that. That’s about all she did right, not drool on herself. I mean, she’s not as dumb as Dan Quayle (P-O-T-A-T-O) , and not as crooked as Agnew (I hope), right?

Anyways, from the start Palin was chipper and full of all these Alaskan-folksy anecdotes, talked about “Joe six pack” (what about Joe thirty rack?), attacked Wall Street, and seemed like a “people person”, Biden was flat, but presidential. By quarter passed 9, I wanted to cunt-punt pailin through the television. “I’m not going to answer that question, instead I’m going to talk to the American people *wink*” Fuck you. Answer the god damned question, that’s what the debate is for, you cock juggling thunder-cunt. Meanwhile Biden, while speaking in Washingtonese, had fact, after fact, after fact. He didn’t make any gaffes, and as far as I can tell, most of his facts were true (enough for a politician).

Now, I don’t think she seemed overly STUPID, however, she did not answer the questions. She seemed confident, and relentlessly attacked Obama/Biden. Biden seemed flustered by her attacks a few times – Palin was winning the theatre aspect of the debate for the first half or so. As the debate went on, her COMPLETELY OVERDONE ACCENT became unnerving, and Biden really picked up steam. Palin definitely went over the top with he speech – look at older interviews and debates, there are about 1/googolplex the amount of “Doncha’s” “Becha’s” “Gotcha’s” and so on. Biden later started attacking Palin and McCain more, and threw out more facts. The moment when he appeared choked up about his kids was definitely a real moment, and will resonate with the people.

Neither candidate had a terrible performance, and neither was spectacular. Yeah, Palin did not answer the questions, but 90% of the time politicians don’t answer the question. She was just flat out honest about it. Instead of talking around the question, she just flat out said, “You know, that’s a gotcha question, doncha know, so you betcha I’m gona talk directly to the hockey mom’s and joe six packs out there, you know, betcha…. MOOSEN!” She really lost me by completely overdoing the accent, and blatantly looking at her note cards for half of the questions she did manage to answer. About half of her attacks missed their mark, but she had some zingers in there for sure. Biden seemed presidential, but hardly reminded me of “Change”. He had a lot of facts, and managed to get some attacks in as well. In the end, Biden may have helped Obama a little bit, and I don’t think palin hurt of helped McCain at all. The Economy is what is hurting McCain, people trust democrats more with the economy, and that is the #1 issue right now. I’ll score the debate as 80 points to 20 points in favor of Biden. Not that it matters, this debate will not significantly impact the dynamic of this campaign.

Now that all this VP crap is over, we can get back to the real campaign. As far as I’m concerned, this race is over. Obama wins. Why? McCain, the day after the debate, pulled out of Michigan. Did anyone else notice this got more headlines than the debate itself? You want to know why? It’s because McCain just lost, that’s why. In pulling out of Michigan, McCain is giving up not only on a battleground state, but on a whole demographic, the most important demographic, and the one that a candidate needs the majority of to win: White middle-class workers. This demographic makes up the vast majority of Michigan. By giving up there, he might as well give up in Idaho, Kentucky, Kansas, Arkansas, Ohio, etc… It is not smart to send a losing message to the demographic you need most.

So, even though McCain lost, I’d like to see him go down with a fight. Not because I want him to win, or go back on his word to run a clean, honest campaign (LOLOLOLOL), but solely for the fact that it is much more entertaining this way.

A few quick notes. Bailout – horrible idea. I’ve decided not to make a big post on it for two reasons. One, I’m no economist, and two, as much information as I’m finding that this whole thing was caused by de-regulation, there’s almost just as much that it was caused by over regulation (see: Community Reinvestment Act). All I know is that it’s bad. Nobody can say weather this will work or not, and since they passed the bill, it has dropped more than 1,000 points. Furthermore, the only difference as far as I can tell between the bill that was rejected, and the one that was passed, is adding 150 BILLION dollars worth of pork for stuff like Puerto Rican rum companies, American companies in Samoa, and wooden bow and arrow makers. It’s going to cost the average tax payer another 2,000. Yeah, people are defaulting on loans because they can’t afford to eat, or pay for gas, and you want to charge them another 2,000? You think they are going to stop eating first, or stop paying debt first? If you are in Massachusetts, please, on November 4^th, vote YES on question 1 to repeal the state income tax. Save yourself 2K, and bail yourself out. While we’re here, vote YES on question 2 – decriminalizing marijuana.

Anyways, I’ll try to get debate updates in quicker than the day of the next debate.

Also, and while we’re here,

You MUST click This link , Even in cases of incest and rape.

MAVERICK!

There are no ties in politics

Alrighty, I’m back. I was working in the wilderness for a month, and pretty much had no access to news, internet, radio, or the papers. I did manage to catch the Obama v McCain debate last week, and take notes on it, so I’m going to write a quick review on that. I’ll be back to updating once a week, pending anymore long term work commitments.

There are no ties in politics; even if it is just by a fraction of an inch, someone is the winner. Though Obama received a big boost after the debate, I think that may have been because of Palin’s idiocy as of late rather than his performance. Most media outlets that I saw (and it wasn’t many at that time, due to me chilling with Moosen and deer) called the debate a draw. Anyways, onward. I need to get this out before tonight’s debate!

Going into this debate, I had low expectations for both candidates. Everyone knows speaking and debating is not McCain’s strong point, and I have yet to see Obama make a smooth on the spot speech or debate without a teleprompter. Hilary frequently mopped the floor with him in the primary debates, and most of his non teleprompter responses since then have had far too many “err…. Um, errr, well, uhhhs” in them. That being said, I think both performed very well, perhaps each even had their best performance in a debate yet.

I saw this debate as sort of a repeat between the Kennedy v Nixon debate of 1960. Those who heard it on the radio thought Nixon won, while those who watched it on TV though Kennedy won. I hate to compare a war hero to a vicious thieving bastard, but McCain was Nixon, and Obama was Kennedy and almost nobody listened to this debate on the radio.

McCain seemed to know more. He had more points in the typical debating sense, and was more specific. Don’t get me wrong, McCain can dance around a simple question such as “what is your favorite color?” (Blue, no, yellooooowwwww…..) just as much as any other typical politician, but he did it less than Obama here. I thought he answered the questions more directly than Obama, and used more evidence and facts. He also seemed to be the more assertive type, interrupting Obama frequently. You make take this as good or bad, but in terms of the debate, that is good. That is about the only thing he was able to do right. The rest of it (mostly perception and appearance things) he did horribly wrong.

His whole attitude was wrong. He was condescending as all hell, not even really looking at Obama the whole time and not using his name. This turns off a lot of people, specifically women (which may be the deciding factor in this election). It is disrespectful to treat a fellow nominee of a major political party that way, and people don’t like to see that. Just seeing McCain on stage at all is bad. Here you have this old, rigid, montone guy, next to the new, upbeat Obama; Old vs. New in a time where change is the coin of the realm. He sounded like he was reading from a god damned phone book the entire time. He once mentioned the “Cadillac of healthcare”. Who drives Cadillacs? Old people. He also seemed to think the public feels that the words “Earmarks” and “Pork barrel spending” are sexy and arousing. He said those words so many times. It reminded me of Rudy Gulliani, every answer was “I kicked ass on 9/11”. We get it, move on to something else.

Contrasting with McCain, you have Obama. He surprised the heck out of me with how articulate he was without the teleprompter. I don’t think he stuttered once. I think especially for Obama, this was his best debate. He seemed to dance around the questions more and was less specific, but honestly, perception is 95% of the reason people get elected. It’s a popularity contest, but the winner gets nuclear arming codes. He seemed very presidential and well prepared. I also think he may have eased the worries of many people (in the south) who feel he is “some scary black man” or he is “not like me”. He definitely appeared like one of the people and one who wants to do his best for this country. This guy is clearly the new hope and change ticket, despite McCain attempting to steal that thunder.

Obama’s biggest, and only real mistake here was saying that “The senator is right” or “I agree with the senator” on almost every question. Don’t agree with him, call him a cock juggling thunder-cunt that sleeps with goats…. figuratively at least. Make him wrong. He was also less specific than McCain, but they both danced around the first questions with the economy, unable to give a specific answer. Even when pressed by the moderator.

I give this debate a 65/35 split in favor of Obama, if you watched on TV. I think if you listened to this on the radio, McCain won, but nobody does that anymore.

On to tonight! First of all, the moderator, Gwen Ifil, has a book coming out entitled: “Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama”. Yes. The moderator has a pro-obama book coming out, and stands to make SIGNIFICANTLY more money if he wins. Let it sink in…….

WHAT THE FUCK?!?! How the fuck did this happen? If you think that she is going to be unbias, you are completely wrong. And if (when) Palin tanks this debate, it will just give conservatives an excuse.

Anyways, tonight’s VP debate could be the most important one ever. While Palin is not at retarded as Dan Quayle, she is still (apparently) a moron. I will reserve final judgments until after this debate, but in this last week she has gone from media sweetheart to local water-head. Tonight, if she crashes and burns (a la Katie Couric interview, which was easy and predictable) it will bring McCain’s judgment severely into question. People are already uneasy that she “is just a heartbeat away from the presidency” (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP SAYING THIS!!). What she has to do tonight, and I think she will do, is ATTACK like an ape on PCP and steroids. I mean just beat the piss out of Biden and Obama. She has to take the flack off of her, and change the template of Thursday. She has to take the focus off of her apparent retardation.

Furthermore, if she bombs tonight, there wont be the excuse of sexism, because the debate is being moderated by [a super liberal] woman [with a pro-Obama book]. Who knows though, she could really do well – I heard some clips of her Alaskan debates, and she did really, really well. However, no matter how well you debate, if you don’t know shit about national and international affairs, you are going nowhere. Yeah, you know your stuff on Alaska, but you have to know 100x that to be president. Who knows though, she just could be playing dumb with this interviews to lower the expectations for tonight. Right now all she has to do is look clean and not drool on herself and she wins. Maybe. I think Biden will wipe the floor with her though. I actually like him better than any of the other three candidates on the ballot.

I should have an update by Wednesday (away for the weekend with the girl) filled with my analysis on this debate, and maybe on the economy. Speaking of the economy, it looks like I’m going to solve this financial crisis. Economic genious? No. Rich foreign nation? No. Financial guru? No.

I’M A TAX PAYER. A taxpayer who is about to get fucked harder than Clay Aiken in prison. Thanks Uncle Sam, may I have another?

Oh, and if I hear the words “Main street” and “Wall street” in the same sentence again, I’ll unleash an army of sharks or bears on the world…. Or bears riding sharks… yeeees.

P.S. Dear McCain: If you are the anti-spending guy who is going to "NAME NAMES" of people who include pork barrel spending earmarks on legislation, why did you just APPROVE the new bailout package that added ONE HUNDER BILLION DOLLARS of park barrel spending without naming names? Oh, that's right, you're a politician. Ungh.

Hadoooken!