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The third and final showdown between John McCain and Barack Obama took place in Long Island, New York. But it really took place in living rooms across America - and in the Theater and Gymnasium of McMenamin's Kennedy School in Portland. And of the three McCain-Obama showdowns, it was probably the liveliest.
The Kennedy School audience, like the crowds at the earler debate parties at the Bagdad Theater, was largely pro-Democrat, but there were some Republicans. Although the crowd was vocally anti-McCain and pro-Obama, it didn't start out as boisterous and raucous as those earlier Bagdad crowds. But it wasn't quiet, either, with derisive laughter following many of McCain's comments, cheers following Obama's. The crowd noise level rose later in the debate, especially during the part about negative campaigning.
Also watching, from his Ohio home, was Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber who had confronted Obama at a campaign appearance there. Joe had no idea that he was going to be a central figure in this debate.
But he was, as an icon of the "average American" in the midst of the nation's economic turmoil. Host Bob Schieffer got right to that issue with his first question. McCain and Obama both tried to convince voters that their "investment" plans would bail out ordinary people faster. McCain wants to use a chunk of the $700 Billion+ bailout to buy homeowners' bad mortgages, pay for their losses, and give them better mortgages.
Obama called for tax credits for businesses that hire people in America. He also called for more middle-class tax cuts, and for removing penalties on early withdrawals of IRAs. And he repeated, for the third straight debate, that his tax plan would lower taxes for "95% of all Americans".
McCain fired back that Obama's plan wasn't going to help overall, because you have to take money from someone to give it to someone else. Obama countered that the ones he wanted to take it from were rich.
Actually, both candidates' overall economic plans would cost about the same, and most of the money would not come from rich people, or middle class people - it would come from borrowing, which will have to be paid back later, with interest - probably through more borrowing.
Host Bob Schieffer made that point, citing a recent finding by an independent panel that both Obama and McCain's plans would raise the deficit.
Obama claims that's not true, that he would find waste and inefficiencies. Then, as in previous debates, he called for more spending on health care, energy, education and other programs - to help Joe the Plumber and all those "average Joes". McCain called again for more spending on mortgages and housing. Then he called for an across-the-board spending freeze - but he exempts Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and Defense - which, along with interest on the national debt, make up the biggest spending items in the budget. And, he repeated his call for cuts in "pork barrel" earmark spending.
But in the midst of one of America's biggest economic crises, neither candidate has really risen to the occasion, and taken control of the issue. Obama did, at one point, admit that the economic mess has been building for decades, but quickly switched back to blaming it on the past eight years of President Bush.
Much of the debate sounded familiar, but the candidates were more direct, and often more blunt, than in previous debates. And again, Obama appeared to be the more cool and comfortable of the two.
The format was interesting; both candidates literally faced each other, at a desk. McCain used that to throw some accusations at Obama; he was pugnacious and direct. Obama used it to counter those attackes, and turn them back against McCain. The more pointed of them routinely drew cheers and applause from the Kennedy School crowd. But one person got more cheers and laughter than anyone: When McCain kept referring to "Joe the Plumber", the audience hooted. When Obama referenced him, the reaction was more like a mass chuckle.
That crowd reaction may have been partisan, but, after a long campaign and several rounds of debate, it has also become familiar. Given the food, the beer and the casual environment, it makes the debate party feel a bit like a crowd that gets together to watch a big football game. But in this game, some of the applause also went to the referee - host Bob Schieffer. Some of it came when Schieffer asked both if they were ready to end the negative campaigning.
That led to the most dramatic part of the debate - and probably the most damaging to McCain.. He pointed to some of Obama's ads and accusations, looking him in the eye and calling them not truthful. Obama fired back, saying the American people know it's McCain who's conducting the most negative campaign. Obama called McCain's tactics "politics as usual".
Obama counter-punched, attacking the recent tone of the McCain campaign, especially claims that Obama associated with a former domestic terrorist. Obama responded by "setting the record straight" about the issue, and looked presidential doing so - at times almost appearing to lecture McCain about his positions and his record. McCain pressed the attack anyway - essentially pressing a negative point even while answering a question about whether he and Obama were going to stop the negative attacks.
McCain's personal attacks didn't sell with the Kennedy School crowd, and I suspect they didn't sell with the American people either - or with Joe Wurzenbacher, the Ohio plumber. He's still not saying who he'll vote for, but millions of others are; the polls show Obama with a commanding lead which is growing every day.
Gene Greer, KOINLocal6.com
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Wednesday night's KOIN Local 6 Debate Party at the Kennedy School filled to capacity early. People lined up before 5 pm for a chance to watch the final McCain-Obama debate on the big screen at the McMenamin's school's Theater and Gymnasium.
Before the live debate started, KOIN played a video tape of senate candidates Jeff Merkley and Gordon Smith. During that pre-taped encounter, the Theater crowd, in its overstuffed chairs and sofas, was much quieter than the boisterous crowds at the two earlier debate parties at the Bagdad Theater. That was partly because not everyone was watching it. Many were getting their meals and their beer. And this was a taped debate, essentially filling time before the Main Event - sort of like the canned music played at a concert venue before the live music starts. Like the earlier Bagdad debate parties, most of the live audience members are Democrats.
During that pre-debate debate, Smith and Merkley sparred over finances, budgets and taxes, the Iraq war, crime and other issues. Both promised more government money for the middle classes. Merkley attacked Smith's record on spending and taxes, endorsing "tax cuts for the middle class", echoing Barack Obama's tax plan.
Both called for an end to the Iraq war. When asked what they'd do if Russia invaded another country like it did Georgia, both candidates were somewhat vague, calling for humanitarian aid and some kind of diplomatic action.
The two candidates did differ on capital punishment, with Smith supporting it and Merkley wanting to ban it.
As the senate debate wore on, many audience members seemed to lose interest. The talk level went up inside the theater as people drank their beer, commented on what they saw and started talking, again, about the upcoming live face-off between Obama and McCain.
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After the conclusion of the Obama-McCain debate party at the Bagdad Theater, most speakers concluded that Obama had won. That was no surprise, since most of those present were vocal Democrats.
However there was some dissatisfaction also expressed. Several speakers wanted to hear more about education. A couple wanted more solid promises about health care. Several expressed unease and doubts about the future.
In 1960, John F. Kennedy spoke an historic quote: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
But given the current economic climate, some of the opposite happened, as debate-watchers lined up to have their say at the Bagdad. Several speakers, worried about their futures and upset about their tax dollars bailing out tycoons, wanted to know what their government was going to do for them.
Ironically, it was the candidate most were against - John McCain - who had an answer to that. McCain proposed a government-funded refinancing of millions of distressed mortgages. That costly proposal was about the only new ground broken during the debate.
Several speakers had trouble paying their bills, especially their medical bills. One teacher worried that the McCain health plan might force her to pay a portion of her own health insurance (her school district pays for health insurance, not the federal government). Others were having trouble finding good jobs. Most want to hear how the government is going to help them, and not all were satisfied with what they heard during the debate. Through it all there seemed to be a bit of skepticism - that no matter who won the election, economic trouble might lie ahead.
Others simply tried to objectively determine who won. Most agreed Obama did - though a couple of Republicans also spoke - one forcefully defending McCain's foreign policy.
Although McCain did apear more comfortable with the informal Town Hall format, the largely-partisan Bagdad crowd agreed that Obama won the "style" contest - more relaxed, more direct, more convincing. However, neither candidate broke much new ground.
Several people used the opportunity to talk not so much about the debate, but to push their own favorite projects or viewpoints - which is perfectly OK. We'd like to hear your own opinion and observation, which you can post as a comment to this blog.
Gene Greer, KOIN Local 6
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Tuesday's debate had a different format from the previous ones. This was a town hall style format. John McCain was clearly more comfortable with that, but Barack Obama also handled the style well. So the style was different. For the most part, the substance wasn't.
In Nashville, host Tom Brokaw asked the crowd to be reserved and polite. When he added, "Those of you watching across the nation are not so constrained", the crowd at Portland's Bagdad Theater erupted with cheers, whisteles and applause.
The first and dominant theme was, of course, the economy. The first question dealt with bailing out "the citizens" - as opposed to Wall Street Fat Cats. Obama called the current crisis the "final verdict" on the Bush/Republican years. He called for strong oversight of last week's $700-Billiion-plus bailout bill, which both he and McCain voted for. Then he repeated his calls for overhaul of several government programs. McCain acknowledged that Americans were "angry and fearful", calling for more energy independence, low taxes and a curb on government spending. He then called for more spending - by having the government buy up bad mortgages from homeowners, and refinancing them at government expense. It was the one new proposal that came out of the debate, and, as McCain admitted, "It would be expensive."
Underlying all this was the general unsease in the nation and world - and fear that the economic collapse could get a lot worse before it gets better.
Both candidates complained about the "greed and corruption" on Wall Street. People sitting in the crowd directed their questions directly at the candidates. As they answered, the largely-partisan crowd at the Bagdad Theater reacted with hoots, laughter and catcalls - or with cheers and applause, depending on whether Obama or McCain was doing the talking. But they were silent when McCain pointed out that Obama was one of the biggest recipients ever of campaign cash from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Obama countered that, campaign cash nothwithstanding, he never favored those mortgage companies in legislation. Then he pointed out that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, was himself a lobbyist for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Both good points. However, neither was an answer to the questions about the Bailout, and how to pay for it.
The theater crowd applauded one nonpartisan question. The question reflected the growing national cynicism. It was: How could voters could trust either party, when they both got us into this mess. Obama blamed President Bush, not congressional Democrats. McCain pointed to Obama's votes for Bush's budget. He then touted his history as a bipartisan "maverick", arguing that Obama has consistently voted for increased spending. This, just 15 minutes after unveiling his own multibillion mortgage-refinance plan.
Point by point, argument by argument, the two candidates jabbed, punched and wove through the verbal battle. McCain gave as good as he got; he had wanted more of these "Town Hall" style formats, so he tried to make the best of this one. But his answers and arguments, like Obama's, were largely repeats of the first debate, and of campaign platforms created months ago.
Asked about three big items - energy, health care and costly entitlement programs - McCain said we had "to deal with" all three. Obama put energy first on his priority list. He made health care his third priority. Jumping past entitlements, Obama put education third - even though the question did not include education. He skipped over entitlements entirely. That's a pretty big omission; entitlements, which include Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, comprise the biggest spending item in the U.S. Budget.
About halfway through the debate, the topic seemingly switched from the economy to the environment - but both candidates, correctly, pointed out that the topics are intertwined, and both called for government-funded "investment" (a.k.a. spending) into alternative energy. Both seemed to place their election hopes on delivering more debt-financed government cash to the middle class- or, as that earlier questioner had asked, "bailouts to the people."
The costliest of those programs could be Health Care. Although the question dealt with the actual cost of health care, Obama and McCain argued about different ways to provide health insurance. Obama's is more government-centered, and probably more expensive, since he wants to "insure every American" (a line that drew cheers), and if private companies won't do it, then the government will. McCain's plan is mainly to give big tax credits to people so they can buy their own, private insurance. So he didn't answer the question either, which had asked about controlling the cost of health care itself. It did show two different ways - both of them costly - to deliver health insurance.
One hour into the debate, the candidates started talking about foreign policy - but again, expense and the budget was part of that. Obama called the Iraq war too expensive, repeating his call for a pullout there, and an insertion of more troops into Afghanistan. McCain repeated his own claims to experience and foreign policy knowledge. Though the arguments were more pointed, and the body language more emphatic than in previous encounters, they were basically the same things we've heard before. So had the Bagdad Theater crowd, and the row of bloggers who were describing the event to Internet readers.
And on it went - back and forth. McCain did better than he did in the first debate, but probably did not do enough to turn the tide of public opinion. Certainly not in the Bagdad Theater, where the anti-McCain catcalls continued through the entire episode; and probably not in the living rooms across America, where McCain's performance was likely better received - but not that much better. Obama may have been a hit in the Bagdad Theater, but I'm not sure either man was a big hit to average Americans watching at home - and hearing much of what they've already heard throughout this campaign.
Gene Greer, KOINLocal6.com
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Sarah Palin succeeded in showing she's not out of her league in the debate with Joe Biden.
That may have saved her personal political reputation, after a couple of bad weeks.
But it didn't turn the tide of the election. After all, Biden probably won that debate, if barely - and he and Obama were already ahead. People generally vote for the presidential candidate anyway, not the vice-president. The 70 million Americans who watched may have been influenced, but according to the polls, few were swayed enough to change their votes. The polls favor Obama. He has more votes, and he has more money; McCain stopped campaigning in Michigan to save some of that money.
It's worth noting that Obama and the Democrats are big recipients of donations from the finance industry. Of course, so are the Republicans. Obama got more Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac campaign money than McCain, but that was probably because the wealthy executives figure he'll win the election - and they're probably right. What we're seeing in the debates is entertaining political theater, but so far, no game-changer.
McCain keeps insisting he's different from Bush, and he used to be; but he cast his lot with Bush when he agreed to the Iraq War - even though he wanted to wage it differently - and when he changed his mind on extending the Bush Tax Cuts.
After those cuts went into effect, our already-huge national debt ballooned, and it has kept growing every year since, with a constant stream of annual deficits. And now, McCain wants to keep those tax cuts in effect - not that a Democratic Congress would let him.
In the first debate, both candidates were questioned about how they were going to pay for the $700 Billion Bailout - and neither stepped up to the plate. McCain talked about controlling earmarks and putting a spending freeze on a few programs. Obama correctly called those proposals too small, then declined to name any cuts at all which he himself would make.
Then, less than a week later, both candidates voted for an even more expensive bailout. The U.S. Senate had loaded it with added tax loopholes, subsidies, and, yes, earmarks - just what McCain had complained about in the first debate. The $700 Billion Bailout had become an $830 Billion Bailout, and neither McCain nor Obama tried to cut it down to size.
But Obama, at least, had not railed against "earmarks" in the first debate. Condemning them, and then voting for them, hurt McCain - not as much as his earlier comment, several weeks ago, that the U.S. economy was "fundamentally sound" - but, taken together, McCain hardly looks like an economic expert.
So the economy has, politically, broken Obama's way. People have seen him as more able to handle it than McCain. And this election year, the economy is everything.
McCain did have a chance to do something maverick-style and dramatic. He could have changed his mind about the tax cuts, saying the state of the economy requires drastic action, and the government needs that money to fund bailouts. But politicians don't like to promise pain, and taxes are painful.
Just the interest on the $11 Trillion National Debt makes up a quarter of the government's annual budget - a budget that was in the red even before the bailout. Each year there's a deficit, the overall debt gets worse.
And the party that must deal with that debt will be the party in power. Barring an unforeseen political earthquake, that party will be the Democrats - in both the White House and in Congress. And then, as they say, comes the hard part.
Winning an election is one thing. Actually governing is a different matter.
Gene Greer, KOIN Local6.com
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In comments after watching the Biden-Palin debate, members of the crowd which packed the Bagdad Theater Thursday largely agreed that Biden won.
But it was clear that most of the people in that crowd were already going to vote for Obama and Biden.
One Republican woman complained not about the debate itself, but about the crowd noise; she said she'd have to go home to watch the debate on a video replay.
The crowd cheered, laughed and booed throughout the debate as it showed on the big screen.
Most other speakers called Biden a clear, decisive winner.
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Sarah Palin and Joe Biden slugged it out toe-to-toe in their vice-presidential face-off in St. Louis.
In Portland, a sometimes raucous crown at the Bagdad Theater cheered and sometimes bood and laughed at candidates' comments. The crowd was largely pro-Obama/Biden, but the McCain/Palin crowd had a few people there as well.
On the big screen, Biden appeared more relaxed and ready, and at first, Palin may have been over-prepared. She appeared a bit tight, at times not directly answering the questions. But she did not back down, and appeared to relax a bit and grow a bit more sharp as the debate wore on.
The stakes were high for Palin, who has been derided lately by some late-night comics after she fumbled a couple of interviews.
On substance, neither candidate really addressed the question of how the government would pay for the $700 billion bailout, or the additional billions that have been piled onto it in order to get more votes in congress.
Biden and Palin sparred on taxes, each attacking the other party's proposals with claims they would not help the average person. Neither offered a way to pay for those cuts.
The candidates both agreed they would not sanction gay marriage. However, when Palin said that, many of those at the Bagdad Theater jeered and bood. When Biden said the same, they were silent.
The clashes on Iraq were largely a repetition of the McCain-Obama debate of last week. The two argued details about Iran and Afghanistan.
Although Biden did well, Palin did not back down, and may have saved her reputation from some of the damage it has suffered lately.
Whether she actually won the debate, or won enough votes to sway the election, is another matter.
-Gene Greer, KOIN Local 6.com-
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