McCain downgrading eloquence?

My colleague Steve Greenhut and I did live-blog tonight's debate over at the Orange County Register's Orange Punch blog, so if you want to see real-time reactions, including to the cable news media coverage, you might want to click over there. I have just a couple more observations here.

On several occasions, when Obama came back with a fairly smooth response to one of McCain's charges or criticisms, McCain would come back with a relatively dismissive reference to Obama's "eloquence." I think I know what he was trying to do: dismiss what Obama had just said as merely a smooth but fact-free statement, and perhaps trying to garner some underdog sympathy for the plain-spoken straight talker. But in using the word "eloquence," I think he gave Obama more credit than he should have; I suspect people value eloquence in a president. Maybe a word like "smooth talker" would have been more effective.

Botoom line: I think this was McCain's best performance, and he certainly did some attacking on specifics. He may even have won on points if you were scoring as a debate judge would. But I think he didn't come close to doing enough to turn the race around, and I'm not sure what he could do that would. As I've mentioned before, I think he lost his best chance by not opposing the $700 billion bank bailout. I haven't talked to anybody who isn't in the political or chattering classes who favored that ill-conceived move, and the stock markets seem to agree.

Blogging the debate tonight

My Register colleague Steve Greenhut (Mark Landsbaum will be teaching a class) and I will be live-blogging the final (thank goodness!) desultory debate tonight over at the Register's Orange Punch blog. Tune in if you want to revel in our ineffable insights and instant analysis.

Finally, only 20 days. I will be so happy when this endless election is finally over and the next president has to confront the mess Dubya (and his predecessors, to be fair) have left him. Maybe the partisan hormones will recede for at least a little while.

Live-blogging the debate

My Register collegues Mark Landsbaum, Steve Greenhut and I live-blogged the presidential debate/town meeting tonight, over at the Register's Orange Punch blog. Quick verdict: McCain needed to create a game-changing situation, to win dramatically, to start to turn the campaign around. The debate was close to a tie, so the tie goes to Obama. McCain already missed his best chance by not opposing the stupid and harmful $700 billion bailout, thereby getting on the side of the people.

Expect more wars

Here is a link to my most recent column for Antiwar.com. Bouncing off the presidential debate on Friday, I predict that whoever is elected we can expect more wars and more aggressive intervention by the U.S. in the affairs of other countries. Both candidates expressed serene confidence in the mission of the U.S. to set the world right; they simply differed over which conflicts were priorities and what kinds of tactics to use. For someone who believes that the United states needs a new foreign policy -- something akin to the "humbler" policy George W. Bush claimed to espouse when he first ran for office -- this was a most dispiriting debate.

Live-blogging the debate

My colleagues Steve Greenhut, Mark Landsbaum and I live-blogged the presidential debate tonight at the Register's Orange Punch blog. We didn't score it, as some did, just made comments as it went along. I thought it was fairly even, which probably meant Obama won since foreign policy was supposed to be McCain's turf. As I said at the end, however, it was two imperialists jousting about which parts of the empire they wanted to put resources into, which is hardly satisfying to somebody like me who wants to see a new foreign policy. Ah. well.

A few other comments, based on some channel-switching. Chris Matthews was ballistic wanting Obama to be more populist and talk about the misery of people being laid off and all. But Obama isn't a populist type and never will be. For some liberals, it's always the Great Depression. He also went on and on about how McCain didn't look Obama in the eyes. Big deal, phony issue. David Gergen on CNN scored it for Obama. And Frank Luntz's focus group, composed of undecided independents, he assured us, split 17-10 for Obama