OK. Here it comes.
I can’t tell much of a difference between the two of them on the bail out.
Health care. Yeah, there’s no way that we’re going to be able to do this after the bail out.
Maverick. Ew. Nobody should call themselves a maverick.
Dan Drezner is live blogging, too.
Obama makes a reference to Biden’s foreign policy experience. Perhaps a jab at Miss Alaska.
Obama points out that McCain was wrong about the war in 2003. Stop talking about being right about the surge, please.
Afghanistan. Obama – Poppies. Got to do something about them. Should be there. McCain – Don’t want to get tangled up in Afghanistan like the Ruskies. Don’t want to tick off the Pakistan. We should be friends with the people there. But the Iraqi people are a different story.
Hmmm. Need a dress for a party next week. Let’s check out what’s on sale at the Banana.
McCain keeps hammering on the lack of frequent flier miles of Obama. McCain clearly feels that his military cred is a high card in his hand. "I’ve been there and had a beer with General Petraeus."
What to do about the baddies in the world? Should we talk with them? McCain says no way. But he has no problem talking with the baddies in China.
Who’s winning? McCain just scored points. He clearly feels very confident on foreign policy.
Russia. I looked into Putin’s soul and I saw KGB. It was a good line when I first heard it several months ago. Again, again with McCain’s travel experience.
Terrorist attack again? McCain – much less likely today. Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be another topic that they are both going to say the same thing. We have to do more – border security, container ships. This is a no brainer response.
Dates for withdrawal in Iraq. This is one major difference between them. Well, isn’t Iraq giving us a time table for withdrawal now?
Overall – Really disappointing. Too much agreement. No clear winner. No zingers. McCain probably scored a lot points by name dropping and location dropping. But there were small points. I would have liked to have a better discussion about the two or three real differences. I would have liked a whole lot more on the economy. I thought Obama was a bit shy about attacking McCain, but did a good job of responding to every jab that McCain threw at him.
Apt. 11d 
what is with McCain’s laugh?
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A friend of mine says McCain laughs when he’s angry.
Heh. “You were wrong.”
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“Nobody should call themselves a maverick.”
I still picture Tom Cruise and that was like 20 years ago.
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I think of that Bugs Bunny cartoon. “Maaaaaaverick!” Wasn’t he a sidekick? Oh, picture here.
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Here’s a summary of Oily Hare, the cartoon with “Oil-Rich Texan” and his silent sidekick Maverick.
A small clip, where he calls for Maverick at the end.
I’m the only one amused by this coincidence, I’m guessing?
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“I’m the only one amused by this coincidence, I’m guessing?”
Probably. After reading the description, I remember the bit. But, between Tom Cruise, James Garner and Mel Gibson, it won’t stick.
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I think I may be the only person here who used to be able to recite entire Bugs Bunny episodes. 🙂
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I didn’t watch it. I never really do, ’cause for me it would all be a game, since there’s nothing that could happen in the debate that would get me to change my mind (and that’s true in every presidential election, not just this one when I have such high hopes).
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One thing I thought was interesting enough to hit pause on the TiVo: when Obama and Michelle walked off the stage, you could see the faces in the crowd following/watching him. I paused it and pointed out to my husband how everyone’s faces were turned.
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I wanted more jabs, too, Laura — especially on how Mccain’s whole philosophy–until this week–has been anti-regulation.
But I’m not sure that mysterious undecided voter wants jabs. People apparently thought that Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in the debates because he was nicer. Image matters. Obama seemed knowledgable and pleasant–and presidential. McCain seemed ever more like Mr. McGregor: you kids get off my lawn! He looked mean and small. Not a winner.
Advantage Obama.
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“Mccain’s whole philosophy–until this week–has been anti-regulation.”
McCain-Feingold?
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“”Mccain’s whole philosophy–until this week–has been anti-regulation.”
McCain-Feingold?”
Yeah, that is a counter-example. Too bad Palin had to “get back to you” on it.
McCain clearly has been in favor of a shallowly regulated financial industry. Nothing wrong with that — it’s a valid debatable position, except if you try to pretend it’s not true when politically convenient.
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I am not aware of all the anti-regulation examples where McCain has acted in opposition to most Democrats.
In 2006, McCain co-sponsored legislation calling for increased regulation over Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. At the time, he said:
“For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.”
All Democrats on the committee voted against it, and Obama did not weigh in on that bill.
This came after the Bush administration in 2003 “recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.”, according to the NYT. It was blocked by the Democrats, including Barney Frank. Also, according to the NYT:
”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
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Speaking very broadly, isn’t McCain the sort of guy who sees himself as riding in on a white horse to do battle with the forces of evil, with regulation being the weapon of choice?
McCain’s taste for regulation is a big chunk of the reason that he wasn’t the Republican nominee in 2000. Conservatives hated McCain-Feingold, and there was a sense of betrayal when Bush failed to veto it.
For McCain, no issue was too small for Congress to involve itself in. I was just looking at a Washington Post article from 2004 with the headline
“McCain Threatens Baseball Over Drugs: Ariz. Senator Wants Stricter Steroid Policy.”
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“A decade ago, Sen. John McCain embraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth. ”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091603732.html
“In 2002, McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that “the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation.””
“Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country’s financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies. ”
“In 2007, he told a group of bloggers on a conference call that he regretted his vote on the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, which has been castigated by many executives as too heavy-handed. ”
“In the 1990s, he backed an unsuccessful effort to create a moratorium on all new government regulation. ”
“But he sat at the center of arguments between telephone, cable and satellite companies, almost always pressing for more competition.
“I’m always for less regulation,” he told the Wall Street Journal in March. He added: “I’d like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated.” ”
(mind you, there are instances where he’s supported regulation, but I think characterizing him as someone who wants to use government regulation to battle evil would be like suggesting that he’s a Democrat).
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“I think characterizing him as someone who wants to use government regulation to battle evil would be like suggesting that he’s a Democrat.”
Just a few years back, he was every Democrats’ favorite Republican, and there was talk of him leaving the Republican party not so long ago.
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“he was every Democrats’ favorite Republican”
Perhaps, but that was ’cause of who the rest of the democrats were. And, Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins were always way higher, and Spector. But, our very favoritist Republican was Jeffords. I also think the Senators themselves are less partisan than the people.
I think McCain (before his recent morph) used to appeal to a certain kind of independent, more than an actual Democrat. David Brooks was reminiscing extravagantly in the NY Times.
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Oops, the rest of the Republicans — when you’re comparing folks to Strom Thurmond, Phil Graham, Tom (what’s his name, the exterminator guy), you don’t have to do very much to be a Democrat’s favorite Republican.
(McCain denies the talk about leaving the Republican party: “Mark Salter, one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers, said that Mr. McCain, although flattered, never took the idea of leaving the party seriously.”)
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Yeah, a decade ago that horrible Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was “embraced” by all those rabid anti-regulators who supported it 90-8 in the Senate and 362-57 in the House, including Biden and Reid. Oh, don’t forget Clinton, who signed it into law.
“McCain has not always opposed government regulation. He supported efforts to allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. And he pushed to strengthen the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requirements, which were put in place after the accounting scandals involving Enron and other major firms. “
McCain said he’d “like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated.” Clearly, there are some he feels are necessary.
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A problem with the concept of the “undecided voters” is that we assume they are going to think before choosing. “Undecided” doesn’t necessarily mean they are actually thinking about it.
The one thing about this bailout package of 100,000 Alaskas (see: Seward’s Folly) is that it really makes people think about what that ‘less government’ party is saying to them when they already can’t afford gas to get to work.
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Evil Scientist
Boo!
Now, that’s a Bugs Bunny Episode
Monsters are such interesting people.
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Amy P,
If you are clinging to McCain-Feingold as the reason to vote for the man who, until THIS WEEK, thought that deregulation was important not only for banks but for health insurance, I wonder if you have noticed that he hasn’t mentioned McCain-Feingold once in months. He can’t. You see, Senator Pander-to-the-Extreme-Right has had to abandon the few things that actually made him slightly maverick like.
He just published an idiotic article about doing for health insurance what we did for banking: deregulate!! He has stood for deregulation for decades — well, until this week, when he suddenly is embracing it. I wonder when he’ll figure out how much his own primary advisors are responible for this mess.
If you can’t see the lunacy of McCain’s positions on banking regulation, then I’m guessing you find Sarah Palin to be deep and well-versed in public policy.
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RCinProv,
I think McCain-Feingold stinks. However, I mention it because it undermines the case that McCain is some sort of Reaganesque deregulator. McCain is not my BFF, and I’m just as surprised as anybody that he’s the Republican nominee (I posted here a while back arguing why it was impossible–age, tendency to joke about “gooks,” lack of conservative cred). However, McCain has a lengthy political history and has carried on a storied romance with Democrats and the press, and I feel like I’m in the middle of some sort of perverse and Orwellian attempt to try to rewrite him.
Also, we’ve been talking about “regulation” as if it were all the same sort of thing. McCain wanted more regulation and oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a few years back and was unable to get it. He may be in favor of banking and healthcare deregulation, but I’d have to read up on the details of each case to know whether or not the particular regulations were a plus. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that one of the healthcare regulation options would be to make it possible for Americans to purchase health insurance from out-of-state insurance companies, and to me that doesn’t sound heinous at all.
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RCinProv,
I have to run off, but it just occurred to me that bypassing some states’ requirements that all insurance being offered be gold-plated and cover every treatment under the sun would be very helpful in increasing the number of Americans with health care. I know it’s a complicated issue, but I think that allowing bare-bones catastrophic health insurance policies would be a step forward.
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Amy P,
Oh really? McCain wanted more oversight while he was employing the very poeple lobbying against it and taking their advise?! Do you understand Rick Davis’ relationship to Freddie Mac? Does the name Phil Gramm ring a bell? Gramm was chalking up all our of economic woes up to “whining” just a few months ago. And he was McCain’s economic brain.
McCain has been a MAJOR advocate of deregulation for two decades. Until a few days ago. So please, go ahead, knock yourself out and “read up” about it.
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“Just a few years back, he was every Democrats’ favorite Republican, and there was talk of him leaving the Republican party not so long ago. ”
Olympia Snowe was my favorite Republican for many years (I lived in Maine, plus she sponsored federal legislation protecting the right to breastfeed). And Lincoln Chaffee has in recent months endeared himself to me. I’m a sucker for anyone calling Palin a “whacko.”
I never liked McCain. “Maaaaaaverick!”
Western Dave: “I gotcha a little bunny rabbit. To have!” That’s my favorite.
In the classroom sometimes I compare myself to Witch Hazel, except instead of hairpins flying, paper clips go flying. My students never get it, alas. “Sharp enough to split a hair. Split a HARE! Heeheeheeheehee!”
I can keep going….
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I have to agree that McCain was not the favorite republican of serious democrats. That was a misconception that republicans had about him. Or perhaps it was a smear directed at him by conservatives.
As for McCain’s health plan, my understanding is that it involves taxing employees and their employers on the health insurance benefits that employees receive at work (taxing it as income), which will lead employers over time to give less insurance, which will force people to purchase insurance from non-employment related insurance pools, likely with fewer benefits as they cannot negotiate as a group and without protections for pre-existing conditions. Everyone would receive money from the government to purchase plans from these pools. Anyone with insurance currently from their employer is going to be pretty upset with this plan, and since that’s a lot of people, the plan strikes me as a non-starter.
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Amy P,
In case your reading up doesn’t get to Mother Jones (9/10/08), here are some facts to consider about McCain’s claims about those darn lobbyists, who actually help run his campaign:
Aquiles Suarez, listed as an economic adviser to the McCain campaign in a July 2007 McCain press release, was formerly the director of government and industry relations for Fannie Mae. The Senate Lobbying Database says Suarez oversaw the lending giant’s $47,510,000 lobbying campaign from 2003 to 2006.
According to the Senate Lobbying Database, the lobbying firm of Charlie Black, one of McCain’s top aides, made at least $820,000 working for Freddie Mac from 1999 to 2004. The McCain campaign’s vice-chair Wayne Berman and its congressional liaison John Green made $1.14 million working on behalf of Fannie Mae for lobbying firm Ogilvy Government Relations. Green made an additional $180,000 from Freddie Mac. Arther B. Culvahouse Jr., the VP vetter who helped John McCain select Sarah Palin, earned $80,000 from Fannie Mae in 2003 and 2004, while working for lobbying and law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP. In addition, Politico reports that at least 20 McCain fundraisers have lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pocketing at least $12.3 million over the last nine years.
For years McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was head of the Homeownership Alliance, a lobbying association that included Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, real estate agents, homebuilders, and non-profits. According to Politico, the organization opposed congressional attempts at regulation of Fannie and Freddie, along the lines of what John McCain is currently proposing. In his capacity of president of the group, Davis went on record in 2003 and insisted that no further reform of the lenders was necessary, in contradiction to his current boss’s sentiments. “[Fannie and Freddie] are subject to an innovative and stringent risk-based capital stress test,” Davis wrote. “The toughest in the financial services industry.”
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Wendy,
I showed What’s Opera Bunny to teach Romantic Nationalism.
Your turn
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I don’t know if I can beat showing “What’s Opera Bunny” to a class, but other favorite lines:
Come… back… here … you … rabbit….
He’s not in this stove!
Oh ho, he’s hidin’ in the stove, eh?
And my favorite example of a pop culture reference that didn’t make any sense to a 12 year old years later….
“It ain’t Wendell Willkie!
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Thanks for providing us with the facts about McCain and regulation, RC. I wish that Obama had pressed that point more in the debate. I think we’ll have to do that on the blogs.
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“and there was talk of him leaving the Republican party not so long ago.”
And now he’s the Republican nominee for president! Must be pretty galling for dedicated Republicans.
Also, “Duck Amuck” is, objectively speaking, the best Bugs Bunny cartoon ever; its closest rival is “Transylvannia 6-5000.” Hocuscadabra!
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Although it is possible that “Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century” is Daffy’s best.
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“And now he’s the Republican nominee for president! Must be pretty galling for dedicated Republicans.”
It is a bit weird. I have no idea how we got here, aside from Republicans’ famous tendency to choose the oldest guy in their party. On the other hand, I can’t say it’s not enjoyable to see most of McCain’s old chums turn on him.
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