Second Presidential Debate: A snoozer with a few highlights

Posted by admin on 2008 October 9

I like to let things settle a bit on my mind before making comment, but a two days later there’s not much to remember about this debate.

Obama didn’t say anything new, as far as I recall, and as far as I can tell from re-reading the transcript. His main points were that he would focus on health care, energy, and education. It’s all stuff he’s talked about before, and though he doesn’t talk much about details in his public appearances, they are on his website for all to read.

Like McCain, Obama thinks energy is one of the number one priorities, but unlike McCain, Obama’s emphasis is not on oil but on alternative energy sources. McCain just came across as a shill for the oil companies.

One thing I liked a lot was Obama’s talk about making college affordable again. For too many years, private lenders have been using shady tactics to get money from college students, it’s time to go back when education was partly subsidized by the government. That’s something I would not mind spending my tax dollars on, and it wouldn’t cost much either.

On the subject of using US force to fight genocide and similar activities, Obama gave a very good answer to that, contrasting his willingness to work within the world community with the approach of our current Administration and the likely approach of a McCain administration.

On foreign policy in general, Obama showed a good command of the facts and the challenges. He recommended getting the Iraqis to step up quicker so we can shift some of our troops to help in Afghanistan. He also recommended anticipating problems in the global arena rather than just reacting to them.

In short, he showed himself to be cool headed, forward looking, knowledgeable, and competent, which is all he really needs to do at this point, maybe that’s why there’s so little to report. He did defend himself against some of the accusations of the McCain/Palin camp, but he never went for the jugular.

Of course, the more entertaining part of a discussion of the debate would be to run McCain over the coals, which would be easy, but at this point I think it’s unnecessary.