Clifton Griffin

McCain is McCain. He is one of the last people out of the 9 offered to us that I would have chosen to be the Republican presidential candidate. This is for many reasons involving his track record of abandoning conservative principles to find that sweet spot, the proverbial political middle.

But, by comparison to Obama, the most liberal senator in the United States senate, he looks like Reagan. Well, sort of.

Simply put: I have no real choice this election. As much as I’d like to teach the Republican party a lesson, I can’t do so at the expense of irreversible expansion of government and life appointments to the supreme court.

And, besides that, I at least have a pretty good idea of what McCain will do. As I said before, McCain is McCain. And beyond that, I have nothing but respect for him outside of the differences in the way we view government. I don’t believe he is pursuing the presidency for notions of power and fame. That’s a young man’s game.

No, I think he actually thinks he can accomplish good. And, I’m willing to let him try.

Which brings us to tonight’s debate.

I will say first: McCain won tonight’s debate. I don’t say this partisanly. I say this as a nerd who actually finds these types of things interesting.  I’m biased like everyone, but I am willing to give the spoils to the victor. (As I did with the Palin/Biden debate)

McCain didn’t win neccessarily on issues alone (though overall he communicated his ideas better), he won by demeanor.  He managed to put Obama on defense early on and from that point forward, Obama seemed disagreeable, and even found reason to be rude to the moderator, Tom Brokaw, and blame his abuses of the clock on Seantor McCain. “I’m only trying to keep up with John McCain!”

It was childish, and it certainly didn’t portray confidence. If you are firm in your position and standing strong on your ideas, you don’t need an extra minute of stolen rebuttal. You have what you said and that is good enough. Arguing with the moderator, changing the subject willy nilly, etc shows weakness.

You don’t have to be a republican to see that.

On the other side of the room, McCain clearly found this format to be most comfortable. It was some of his answers that were troubling.

For instance:

1. On the housing market, he hinted at a plan that ultimately sounds like a complete nationalization of the mortgage market.  I’m hoping he simply misspoke?
2. On taxes, he allowed Obama/every democrat’s idea to stand: that the tax code allows the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Obama repeatedly spoke of the need for everyone to share the load. All McCain had to say was: “The top 1% of income earners pay 50% of the taxes. The top 20% pay 80%. How much more should they pay to share the load?” Checkmate, goodbye.
3. On foreign policy, he mistakenly lobbed Iraq into a list of humanitarian crisis that were not a threat to our national security without properly distinguishing the two.
4. On Iraq, he let Obama’s accusation that going to Iraq was completely wrong and that McCain should have known better.
5. On housing, he mentioned the neccesity of having loan terms readjusted to reflect the “new value” of a person’s house. Does this mean that McCain is now for the socialist idea that the government should be able to decide how much a person owes on a loan they signed?

Fortunately for McCain, Obama’s socialist mantra was extensive and constant. I won’t even attempt to list it.

McCain also did some things right:

1. On taxes he said that we should raise everyone’s taxes and that he doesn’t want to raise anyone’s taxes
2. On foreign policy he demonstrated a superior knowledge of the geography and conditions of the nations being discussed also mentioning the many locations he had personally visited as related to the discussion.
3. On foreign policy he gave concrete examples of bad ideas Obama had, concerning the suggestion that we invade Pakistan if they don’t cooperate and Obama’s belief that the UN should handle the Russia/Georgia conflict.
4. On Iraq he called Obama to task for being wrong on the surge.
5. On healthcare, he pointed out the socialist tendencies of government mandates and challenged Obama to tell people how much he would fine a small business for not adopting his health care plan. (He later pointed out that Obama didn’t answer)

Etc. There were a lot of little things.

Overall, it was nice to see McCain hold his own.

But, it still made me ask myself: How on earth did we narrow down 9 Republicans to 1 quasi-conservative-leans-liberal?