The town hall debate was full of wiles, wacky comments, over talking and awkward stage movements. By merely spewing more of the same rhetoric, but this time with a touch of spice, one thing this debate did show us is that rules are made to be broken.
Tom Brokaw did his best to adhere to the nonsensical rules. A few times he pointed out that he was doing his best to do his job by not allowing follow-up questions, follow-up responses and other debate-like components. Basically, Brokaw was doing his best to do his job by not doing his job.
Once again Sen. John McCain exposed Sen. Barack Obama’s tax policy “secret” of taxing the hell out of all of us. And once again Obama defended his plan, explaining he will raise taxes for a small percentage of the population making a higher wage than most Americans. He also said taxes will actually go down for most of us.
Referring to his own tax policy, McCain said he doesn’t support cutting taxes for the wealthy and doesn’t plan on doing that. However, he does plan on keeping President Bush’s tax cuts in place, which have already provided tax cuts for the wealthy.
You know, on second thought, maybe we should continue with the same tax policy of the current administration. It seems to be working just fine.
Throughout the debate, McCain seemed just as agitated as he was during the first one, except this time he was trying to be nicer. We don’t know how nice it is, however, to refer to the other candidate as “that one” and answer back to Brokaw, “Not you, Tom,” when trying to make a joke.
Another confusing moment for some happened when McCain said he wants to further help struggling home owners by renegotiating their mortgages.
Wasn’t that sort of thing just signed into law?
Bush said almost the same words during a speech earlier the same day, explaining the terms of the bailout package.
Before this package has had a chance to sink or swim, McCain wants to chuck more taxpayer money into turbulent waters.
Sen. McCain, please don’t just say something about the economy to say something about the economy.
McCain did, however, look like he was there to be tough and on a straight-talk express mission, but perhaps, like Obama suggested, he was “missing a wheel,” especially when he stood in front of the teleprompter and camera, blocking Brokaw’s closing statement.
The candidates were not allowed to speak directly to each other and each had two minutes to respond to a question, followed by a one-minute discussion. It seems a minute discussion on anything is hard to accomplish; at least that was the case for Obama. Constantly talking more than his allotted time sparked a little “let’s do this” attitude between the two senators.
It was almost as if they decided to stop being cowardly, break the rules and actually debate for a couple of minutes.
Let them.
Let them address each other and have the opportunity to call out lies and half-truths. We need to see them unrestricted, unscripted and asking each other questions. There is no one who would ask tougher questions than a person’s rival. It is time for the public to see the two duke it out for the most important role in American society at a vital time in its history.
Debate rules are agreed upon by both campaigns and we need to have them willing to be strong enough to not hide behind silly “don’t talk to me” rules.
We deserve a better kind of debate; perhaps an old school-style debate should be revisited. An authentic debate calls for candidates to have one topic and plenty of time to argue their stances on the issue; followed by a direct debate between the candidates themselves.
The voters will be better equipped with knowledge of the “fundamental” differences between the campaigns if the candidates actually engage in true debate, “my friends.”