Six Short Takes on Why Obama Came out Ahead in the Debate

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Six Short Takes on Why Obama Came out Ahead in the Debate

AlterNet. Posted September 27, 2008.

AlterNet's Don Hazen and Joshua Holland weigh in, along with Taylor Marsh, Jane Hamsher, John Nichols and Sheryl Crow.


Joshua Holland:

In the first head-to-head debate of the 2008 campaign, the financial crisis dragged what the McCain camp had hoped would be fought in the GOP nominee's comfort zone -- foreign policy and national security -- squarely into the realm of domestic policy.

Moderator Jim Lehrer made a smooth transition to the voters' top concern in this election, saying that we were facing a potential meltdown of the global economy, which was by definition a matter of "national security."

What followed was a microcosm of the 2008 race: Barack Obama dominated John McCain when the focus of the debate was on the domestic sphere and a fast-deteriorating financial sector, but ceded an enormous amount of political space to McCain on national security, accepting much of the Arizona senator's overarching neoconservative narrative that the United States is surrounded by mortal danger and evildoers and has a moral duty to maintain our forces in Iraq and elsewhere in order to defend the homeland.

McCain appeared twitchy and out of touch as the debate began with the banking meltdown and the Bush-Paulson plan to reverse it. He blinked rapidly and avoided eye contact with Obama, Lehrer and the audience as Obama came out swinging against McCain for enabling the "root causes" of the crisis to develop during decades in the Congress, including a long stint on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

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http://www.alternet.org/election08/100565/six_short_takes_on_why_obama_came_out_ahead_in_the_debate/?page=entire