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Obama on the Ropes in Philly Debate
Last night's big debate was a definite win for Hillary Clinton. The surprise of the night: both candidates were exceedingly polite to one another.
In all the years I’ve lived in Pennsylvania (and I grew up here), I have never seen any political campaign like the knock-down, drag-out brawl between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Naturally, with all the animosity and the negative campaigning, there was much speculation about what might happen at tonight’s debate. (Now that it’s over, ABC has this post-debate summary, and NBC’s Chuck Todd declares McCain the winner.)
Anyway, as a blogger who owns guns, believes in some sort of God, and has occasional bitter thoughts, I’m tickled pink to share my thoughts on the debate for Pajamas Media. Certainly, I was quivering in anticipation. Cartoons like this are everywhere. I’d been blogging up a storm lately (especially about the bitter, churchgoing gun-clingers stuff), and everyone knows this was Hillary’s last clear opportunity. So the big question was….
Would she deliver the knock out punch?
(No, she didn’t.)
Better yet, would “Annie Oakley” Hillary come sauntering in toting a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other?
(In your dreams!)
Plenty of nastiness was predicted, but with a couple of exceptions I’ll discuss in detail, the candidates were a lot nicer to each other than I had expected. I thought questioners George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson were harder on them (especially on Obama) than they were on each other. Fortunately, Stephen Green rectified this imbalance of karma in his drunkblogging by coming down hard on the questioners:
Charlie Gibson is looking especially serious with his glasses way down on his nose, and George Snufflefagus always looks cute in his Big Boy haircut.
Ouch. (Personally I think Steffie has a very convincing haircut, and I’ll bet it was expensive.)
Appearance-wise, I thought Obama looked tired tonight, and a bit harried. Hillary looked rested, alert, on-message, and she was wearing just the right outfit. She stayed alert and alive, while Obama seemed to be suffering from a slight malaise. This is understandable, as he’s the worn-out front-runner who’s really feeling the squeeze, while she’s delighted to have a sudden new opportunity, and she very much seized it tonight. While I would not go so far as to call this debate a total knock-out for Hillary, overall it was a definite win.
Because there’d been so much publicity about it going in, I expected more sniping than there was about the bitter churchgoing gun-clingers, but that part was a draw, and almost boring. In fact, I found myself wondering whether they’d struck a deal to let the “Bittergate” meme die. (Despite the media hullabaloo, it doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent in Obama’s numbers.) So Obama repeated his well-rehearsed explanation about why he’s not an elitist and Hillary reminded us how she’s a “granddaughter of a factory worker from Scranton who went to work in the Scranton lace mills when he was 11 years old, worked his entire life there, mostly six-day weeks” and I was starting to roll my eyes and listen for the violins. (Anyone who believes that neither one of these people are elitists, let me know; I have a bridge for sale.)
And when the Bosnia stuff came up, Obama was downright gracious — going out of his way to hand Hillary a pass:
…the fact of the matter is, is that both of us are working as hard as we can to make sure that we’re delivering a message to the American people about what we would do as president.Sometimes that message is going to be imperfectly delivered, because we are recorded every minute of every day. And I think Senator Clinton deserves, you know, the right to make some errors once in a while. I’m — obviously, I make some as well.
I think what’s important is to make sure that we don’t get so obsessed with gaffes that we lose sight of the fact that this is a defining moment in our history…..
This was then steered into a campaign pitch instead of a criticism of Hillary.
This is not to say that Hillary didn’t have Obama on the ropes repeatedly. She did, and and she really nailed him over Pastor Wrights’s 9/11 remarks:
Obviously, one’s choice of church and pastor is rooted in what one believes is what you’re seeking in church and what kind of, you know, fellowship you find in church. But I have to say that, you know, for Pastor Wright to have given his first sermon after 9/11 and to have blamed the United States for the attack, which happened in my city of New York, would have been intolerable for me.
For those who missed the debate, this YouTube segment gives a pretty good idea.
Obama looked weak and unconvincing in his explanation of how he didn’t know what Wright had been saying — and Gibson’s questions about how he rescinded the invitation he had extended to Wright clearly made him uncomfortable.On the Pastor Wright issue, a clear win for Hillary. During the discussion of Obama’s patriotism, Hillary scored big — but Obama hit back hard — during the discussion of Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.When Ayers’ name was mentioned, Obama jolted me with an astounding comparison between his friendship with Ayers and his friendship with Senator Coburn:
This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn’t make much sense, George.
The fact is, is that I’m also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions.
Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn’s statements? Because I certainly don’t agree with those either.
So this kind of game, in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, is somehow — somehow their ideas could be attributed to me — I think the American people are smarter than that. They’re not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn’t.
If the Ayers-Coburn comparison doesn’t make it into the talk radio discussions tomorrow, I’ll be surprised.
Hillary didn’t touch the Coburn reference, but zeroed in on Ayers’ detestable remarks, and noted that the Republicans would make use of them:
that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn’t done more. And what they did was set bombs and in some instances people died. So it is — you know, I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about. And I have no doubt — I know Senator Obama’s a good man and I respect him greatly but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.
Hillary would have had him had she just stopped there. But incredibly (and stupidly, IMO) she brought up her own “baggage”:
I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years. (Laughter.) And so therefore, I have, you know, an opportunity to come to this campaign with a very strong conviction and feeling that I will be able to withstand whatever the Republican sends our way.
Bad move. By saying that, Hillary seemed to invite -the counterattack from Obama which immediately followed (his only good zinger of the evening):
SENATOR OBAMA: I’m going to have to respond to this just really quickly, but by Senator Clinton’s own vetting standards, I don’t think she would make it, since President Clinton pardoned or commuted the sentences of two members of the Weather Underground, which I think is a slightly more significant act than me –AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Applauds.)
MR. GIBSON: Please.
SENATOR OBAMA: — than me serving on a board with somebody for actions that he did 40 years ago.
And then this, right before the commervial break:
Look, there is no doubt that the Republicans will attack either of us. What I’ve been able to display during the course of this primary is that I can take a punch. I’ve taken some pretty good ones from Senator Clinton. And I don’t begrudge her that. That’s part of what the political contest is about.
And he looks forward to facing McCain, and Iraq, etc.
Hillary said no more about Ayers, of course. (Obama only mentioned these two terrorist pardons. Wouldn’t want to get into the FALN, would we?)
I’d be inclined to say that Obama won the Ayers round with Hillary in the debate, but I’m not sure the dust has settled on the rather peculiar Coburn comparison. He may have damaged himself; OTOH, he may not.
On war and foreign policy, I wouldn’t want to have either one of these clowns in charge. The idea of them giving orders to generals fills me with horror. But they’re both sticking to their guns and refusing to budge on the plans for withdrawal from Iraq.
No matter what the generals in the field say.
While I think both would be dangerous commanders in chief, Hillary seems slightly better in that regard. Regarding United States policy vis-a-vis Iran and Israel, Hillary sounded tougher and more committed than Obama; he thinks an attack on Israel would be “unacceptable, and the United States would take appropriate action,” while Hillary “would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region.”
Call me a warmonger, but I think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is more likely to sit up and pay attention to a threat of “massive retaliation” than “appropriate action.”
So Hillary not only seems better informed on foreign affairs, but she talks the toughest talk:
….we cannot permit Iran to become a nuclear weapons power. And this administration has failed in our efforts to convince the rest of the world that that is a danger, not only to us and not just to Israel but to the region and beyond.
On foreign affairs, Hillary once again was the clear winner.
While both candidates have described the economy as the major issue, they didn’t offer any major new advice; only minor quibbling about who was going to raise taxes higher, and by how much. Fortunately, this was the one night when Hillary spared me her usual braying about how badly she wants socialized health care and how she has so much experience failing to implement it back in 1993.
Oh, and they’re both going to do something about high gas prices; they’re going to investigate the bad guys and they’re going to tax, tax, tax!
Hillary says “we are going to investigate these gas prices” invokes Enron, and promises a “windfall profits tax on these outrageous profits of the oil companies,” while Obama will “investigate potential price gouging or market manipulation” and notes he has also “strongly called for a windfall profits tax.” (Nothing about getting more oil out of the ground or building new refineries, which didn’t surprise me.)
A brief word on gun control: both candidates lost. They seemed to be engaged in some sort of perverse contest to see who was better at obfuscating the documented anti-gun records of each, as well as competing to demonstrate a near-total ignorance about the Heller case. Obama said, “I confess I obviously haven’t listened to the briefs and looked at all the evidence,” while Hillary said, “I don’t know the facts.” Riiiight. (While they’re probably both lying, if they are telling the truth, neither one belongs in a legislature, much in the White House!)
In the end, nothing either candidate said changed my mind, as I still plan to vote for McCain in the fall, and I saw no new issues raised — the only genuine surprise being Obama’s peculiar Ayers-Coburn comparison. It was good to see Obama facing the heightened media scrutiny he deserves, but on the other hand, he’s the one who raised the issue of the Clinton terrorist pardons tonight, not the media.
By the way, I’m a crossover Republican who registered Democrat for strategic reasons. Again, I still think Hillary is the stronger of the two candidates, and nothing I saw tonight changed my mind.
But I’ll be glad when the “strategy” is over.
Eric Scheie is a licensed California attorney (UC Berkeley ‘78; USF Law School ‘82) currently living in the Philadelphia area. A registered Republican, war-supporting, small “l” libertarian and self-styled “culture war traitor” he writes (often satirically) about cultural issues and politics at ClassicalValues.com.
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25 Comments
1. M. Simon:I thought Obama’s take on Capital gains was interesting. Even if raising them got less government revenue he was for it.
He called it a “fairness” issue. I call it punishing the people who produce along with the economy. I don’t see how punishing the successful is a function of honest government but, then maybe I just don’t get it. I have been under the mistaken impression all these years that the purpose of taxation was to raise revenue. How naive of me.
Apr 17, 2008 - 6:41 am 2. Andrew:Its funny how people view events through their own idealogical lens. Combing through the blogs today I noticed that every conservative commentator claims that Hillary won the debate. Yet on sites like Drudge and ABC news Obama wins the debate polls hands down by a large margin. I understand, republicans really want to go up against Hillary in November because they see that as their best chance to win. So their shilling for Hillary can’t be taken at face value. As for the bitterness controversy, there are a lot of white people such as myself who totally agree with Obama’s comments even though I know he shouldn’t have said them. I have been making fun of trailer trash, god-fearing, gun-nuts for a long time. They scare the hell out of me and I do hope they stay home come election time because their idea of a leader is a cross between Jerry Falwell and Yosemite Sam. Word to the wise, America needs elite leaders who rose to that status by their own hard work. Do you want a president thats average or better than the average American? With so many problems to face the answer is obvious.
Apr 17, 2008 - 7:23 am 3. Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg:“Do you want a president thats average or better than the average American?”
Of course not, Andrew. We want an America-hating race-baiter from bizarro-land who can’t be questioned about anything, because that would be unfair.
Obama ‘08!
Apr 17, 2008 - 8:23 am 4. ex-democrat:of course there are a lot of white people like you, andrew. that’s the problem.
Apr 17, 2008 - 9:19 am 5. Al Fin:Neither Obama nor Clinton won the debate hands down. They both lost. McCain won last night’s debate and he wasn’t even there!
Personally, I would not like to have to vote for any of them.
Apr 17, 2008 - 9:37 am 6. Dan D:So Obama doesn’t feel his friendship with a former 60s radical bomber is a problem. What, just because it happened when he was eight, and the guy is now a professor. What if his neighbor, and friend turned out to be a former Nazi SS officer who shoved Jews into ovens at the Dachau extermination camp during WWII. Would we be giving him a pass for that. I think not.
Apr 17, 2008 - 9:55 am 7. David Thomson:“Again, I still think Hillary is the stronger of the two candidates”
I totally agree. However, the Democrats are stuck with “Barry” Obama. They are similar to the guy who jumps out of the 100th floor building and wants to change his mind as he passes the 40th. Sorry, but it’s too late. The Democrats need every bit of their normal 90% of the total black vote. Even a relatively small drop to 80-85% most likely assures defeat in November. My guess in that minimally 25-30% will stay home if Obama is perceived stabbed in the back by the Democratic Party establishment.
Apr 17, 2008 - 10:16 am 8. Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg:“I totally agree. However, the Democrats are stuck with “Barry” Obama.”
The sole purpose for the existence of ’superdelegates’ is for this exact situation: to overturn the popular democratic vote if the democratic leadership realizes the popular candidate is unelectable.
Superdelegates. Do your duty.
Apr 17, 2008 - 10:39 am 9. M. Simon:I’m with Hillary. If that had been my minister who had said America deserved 9/11 I’d have left that church. Obama is still a member.
Obama 08
Apr 17, 2008 - 10:47 am 10. Curly Smith:Obama said, “I confess I obviously haven’t listened to the briefs and looked at all the evidence,” while Hillary said, “I don’t know the facts.”
What makes you think this is limited to gun control? Or to Obama and Clinton? Why should “facts” interfere with legislating? It sounds like standard Washington politics to me.
Apr 17, 2008 - 10:51 am 11. Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg:NYT OpEd: “Small-town people of modest means and limited education are not fixated on cultural issues. Rather, it is affluent, college-educated people living in cities and suburbs who are most exercised by guns and religion. In contemporary American politics, social issues are the opiate of the elites.”
Sound like anyone you know, Andrew?
Apr 17, 2008 - 12:08 pm 12. Don Jaksa:I noted several times when Annie Oakley should have delivered the knockout blow to humiliate Mr. Obama, but failed to pull the trigger. She is the more vetted, refined, experienced candidate between the two. BO just could duck and weave, he just looked more and more annoyed at all the questions. Both answered questions really fast, but after 10 words, slowed down and manuvered the BLAH BLAH towards their own prepared comments and talking points.
VOTE MCCAIN 2008
Apr 17, 2008 - 12:45 pm 13. Tom W.:“I have been making fun of trailer trash, god-fearing, gun-nuts for a long time. They scare the hell out of me and I do hope they stay home come election time because their idea of a leader is a cross between Jerry Falwell and Yosemite Sam.”
I’m sorry, but you didn’t cram enough utterly brain-dead clichés into these two sentences.
Please try again.
Apr 17, 2008 - 1:59 pm 14. Yosemite Sam:On the foriegn affairs issues, both Dems said they intended order a retreat from Iraq immediately upon taking office *irrespective* of their generals’ opinions and advice. BO has no military experience of any kind, HC’s consists of dodging non-existence sniper fire, and they both unequivocally state they have no intention of listening to our military professionals. These are the people you want in charge of the nation’s defense!
Apr 17, 2008 - 3:56 pm 15. Terry Gain:Bullseye Yosemite. America may be inside the opponent’s 30 yard line but these losers will punt nonetheless. After all, what could be more important: defeating America’s self declared enemie (AQI,Iran and anti-democracy Islamicic extremists) or protecting the Democrat narrative that the war is lost.
With these two it’s no contest. They are Democrats. The interests of the party will always take precedence over the interests of the country.
Apr 17, 2008 - 6:06 pm 16. pennsylvania pandermania « The Homesick American…:[...] (via pjm) [...]
Apr 18, 2008 - 1:42 am 17. always right:“Andrew” must be a plant. There is NO WAY anybody on the liberal side will confess to “I have been making fun of trailer trash, god-fearing, gun-nuts for a long time. They scare the hell out of me and I do hope they stay home come election time because their idea of a leader is a cross between Jerry Falwell and Yosemite Sam.”
It is SIMPLY NOT DONE. Or he could be a bad imitator of the liberals, with all the attitudes but not the finesse.
Word to the wise, America needs elite leaders who rose to that status by their own hard work.
This is how I derived at “Andrew” being either a plant, an autobot, or an attention-grabbing troll. Show me a single shred of evidence that either HRC or BHO (1) “rose to th(at) status by their own hard work”, and (2) their ‘eliteness’.
Apr 18, 2008 - 7:47 am 18. Kurt:Good one, Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg: “We want an America-hating race-baiter from bizarro-land who can’t be questioned about anything, because that would be unfair.”
I’ve got to say that in the past few weeks, Obama has succeeded in doing what I thought was impossible. He’s made Hillary Clinton seem likeable. Although I can’t imagine any circumstance in which I’d choose to vote for either Hillary or Obama, if I HAD to choose between them, Hillary would definitely have my vote. Sure she’s got problems with the truth and she’s a divisive figure, but as president, I imagine she’d be more like her husband (who was nothing great), whereas Obama shows every sign of being worse than Jimmy Carter.
Apr 18, 2008 - 8:57 am 19. Andrew:I stand by what I said totally. People who cling to things like guns, religion and xenophobia are easy targets for politicians who want to use fear to accomplish their ends. Instead of hope they focus on people’s percieved terrors. I have no doubt that Bush and the republicans used this to get elected and lets face it it was the less educated white evangelicals which let him get his way. And we are all poorer as a nation for it. As for rising to elite status with their own hard work, I challenge everyone reading this to imagine how hard it would be to get to where Obama is now given all the factors which worked against him in his life. He didn’t get there with his name recognition thats for sure (I am looking at you G.W.Bush and Hillary Clinton).
Apr 18, 2008 - 9:22 am 20. Amos:People who cling to things like god, family, and loyalty to homeland are easy targets for politicians who want to use fear to accomplish their ends. Instead of hatred for conservatives they focus on people’s love of natural human concerns. I have no doubt that Bush and the rethuglicans used this to get elected and lets face it it was the less educated typical white people which let him get his way. And we are all poorer as a nation for it.
Obama on the other hand was given his privilege like a pampered child. He walked into the US Senate with virtually no opposition, and has served less than half of a single Senate term. That means that he is entitled to be US President, and to enforce his enlightened views upon America and the world. We, the enlightened backers of Obama insist upon it!
Apr 18, 2008 - 9:50 am 21. John the Libertarian:As I have said many, many times before: the Democrats are in serious, serious trouble this election cycle. Both candidates are extremely weak.
Apr 18, 2008 - 7:05 pm 22. Patrick:“People who cling to things like guns, religion and xenophobia are easy targets for politicians who want to use fear to accomplish their ends.”
There are no such people who “cling” to their values, they simply live them. It is an offensive stereotype. The religious people I know are wildly successful people. They ‘cling’ to nothing, although I did here on Catholic radio this week the phrase “The Pope is our Hope”. I know a gun owner and 2nd amendment supporters; she’s in her 60s and drives a Lexus. Granny packs heat. Folks dont own guns because they lost a mill job years ago – that’s moronic thinking.
Barack Hussein Obama was as insulting to small town America as a white person would be if he were surprised that a black person could be clean, wear a suit, and talk non-ghetto (cue Joe Biden).
Xenophobia is just a basher-term for people who oppose the horrible positions of voted-against-border-wall and wants-drivers-licenses-for-illegals Obama. Never mind that Obama is himself tapping into that supposed vein by bashing trade agreements that are good for the US. He and the Democrats are opposing the Columbia free trade agreement, whose #1 impact will be to lower tariffs on US exports.
We already have no tariffs on Columbian goods. It’s pure demagogic foolishness to oppose this deal, but the Democrats will do it.
There are people who cling to multi-culturalist racially divisive stereotyping of Typical White Persons ™, and such clingers tend to be assistant profs of Gender Studies at your community college. The shocker is not that such idiocies arent expressed, nor is it shocking that someone on a blog is actually clueless enough to buy into said phony stereotyping.
The shocker is that someone out-of-touch enough to share the bigoted stereotypes is attempting to be our President. Barack Obama, far from being a racial ‘healer’, is bringing racial divisiveness with him in many ways. The way he threw his own Grandmother under the bus to defend Rev Wright was … wrong.
Apr 18, 2008 - 9:45 pm 23. Patrick:“I challenge everyone reading this to imagine how hard it would be to get to where Obama is now given all the factors which worked against him in his life.”
Obama had more privileged forebears than I. After all, his father went to Harvard, and his folks got him into one of the most exclusive private schools in Hawaii. He managed to smoke pot and still get into Harvard law.
It was easier for Obama to get into the Ivy League than it was for me (we are the same age approx). I had better academic preparation than Obama, higher grades, more smarts, etc., but couldt gain admission to Harvard because, well, I was just a Typical White Person ™ and didnt have the melanin content that the Ivy schools were looking for. My advanced degrees and Summa Cum Laude grades had to come from elsewhere.
The wheels were greased for him getting into the Senate when he was in the state house. He was named as sponsor on a bunch of bills he didnt author, as a favor from legislative leaders in Illinois who were grooming him.
After contemplating your question, I conclude that life had treatly me less fairly than it has treated the very-much-coddled Senator Obama. After all, how often does a mere junior Senator with no accomplishments get to rise to the level of Presidential Nominee?
Apr 18, 2008 - 9:56 pm 24. Jack:Patrick,
Apr 19, 2008 - 5:47 pm 25. Klaus:Maybe Barry’s bitter comments should have been directed at you.
Democrats will unite behind the successful presidential nominee winner in PA, NY, IL, and MA…OR BLUE STATES that voted for Hillary in the primaries. Those blue states will vote Obama in November if he’s the nominee. Let’s be realistic here! They are both great candidates and no doubt would make great presidents. But there can be only one, and it looks like Obama
Obama has garnered huge amounts of interest from new and young voters, which the democrats desperately need. His fundraising capabilities from the Internet and small donations are unheard of! He was not taken that seriously by Clinton or the other established candidates when he entered the race….little did they know. Now the Clinton campaign feels like it’s been t-boned by a Mack truck.
Obama has the attributes of MLK and RFK and it’s generating excitement in politics like we haven’t seen since the 60’s. Clinton can’t steal republican votes because she is polarizing. Obama can, because his message reaches over to those moderate republicans and independents.
Clinton will not be able to stop the Obama express, only slow down the inevitable. I can understand Clinton’s disappointment; she thought it would be an inauguration, a crowning, and an entitlement so to speak. But Obama came along, her dream shattered with a new one in the making.
Once the primaries are over, Hillary should show some grace and bow out, for the good of her friends in the Democratic Party (DNC), the party faithful and most importantly, the USA. Hillary needs to get behind Obama and start focusing on beating McCain in November.
Hillary will not overtake Obama. Do the math! On the CNN delegate counter, if Hillary wins 55% to 45% on the remaining primaries (highly unlikely), she will still be well behind in the delegate count and popular vote. The Supers would play political suicide, reversing that count.
As for FL and MI Delegates, seat them evenly at the convention 50% Obama and 50% Clinton. They new the rules and broke them. Rules do not get changed in the middle of the game. Their Supers will remain neutral. Clinton can rant and rave all she wants, but she agreed with the DNC decision when the gauntlet was dropped, as did all the other candidates. Obama didn’t even have his name up in MI.
That’s what happens when you try to steal the campaign attention from smaller states that traditionally hold their primaries earlier in the year. Smaller states count too (ask Obama). Obama deserves credit; he has fought tooth and nail for every caucus and primary to date. Even in states that overwhelmingly support Clinton. This is why he is winning and will be the President of the USA. Obama will not quit because he loves his country and the world in which we all share.
It’s time to move on. No more spin, it’s time to win.
Apr 23, 2008 - 3:25 am