Presidential Debate, Semi-Live Blogging

I was already committed to a large family birthday party on the day of the presidential debate, and so I am now watching them on YouTube and so far, I'm pretty impressed.

At first, I was afraid that we would have just a repetition of talking points, ad nauseum, for an hour and a half. And at some points, there was some of that. Obama, I felt, was trying way too hard to stick McCain to the past eight Bush years, and McCain was sticking to a lot of the misinformation that he's been broadcasting for a long time. However, for the most part, there was a very good, well thought out debate. Jim Leher asked some tough questions, and while both sides did the expect duck and weave tactics, for the most part, Leher tried his hardest to squeeze the answers out of them, though it can be at times like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone.

At this point, in foreign policy, I would be happy with either candidate for president. Of course, I favor most of Obama's foreign policy views more, but in this category, McCain shows often that he's much more moderate than his tough guy Republican speak on the campaign trail and that he's not as rash as he sometimes portrays himself. Both were well educated in geopolitics and spoke of some very tough, complicated issues in a mostly intelligent manner.

David Horsey, Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote: "McCain was combative, tough and, at times, angry. He never looked at Obama. He often dismissed his opponent's views in a caustic tone. Obama was firm, but conciliatory. He attacked, but also acknowledged common ground.

"Partisans will read into these two different styles what they want to see. McCain supporters will perceive their guy as strong and forceful and Obama as too callow to lead in a dangerous world. Obama supporters will see their guy as a diplomatic, level-headed master of nuance and McCain as a belligerent, reckless old man too inclined to rush into battle. What really matters, though, is how the 10 percent of voters who are undecided saw things and that may not be clear until election day."

Overall, I'm very impressed with both candidates. It was actually interesting, and not just cable news fodder. Refreshing. If you haven't watched it, I would recommend it. It's focused mostly on foreign policy, and it is an hour and a half long, but it's worth it if you need to catch up on the past two years' worth of campaigning distilled into a somewhat easy to swallow pill form.

Perhaps what I'm more excited about is the Vice-President debates. Biden often runs his mouth and has the potential to say something terribly embarassing or commit some horrible politically incorrect gaffe. And, Palin. Well, if her performance in an interview with Katie Couric is any indicator, she's got a long way to go before she can speak off the cuff without a teleprompter.

And so, it may play out like an improv episode of the Office. You have Biden, possibly making some inappropriate Michael Scott remark, and you have Palin, who in her interviews can sometimes look somewhat clueless, like a deer caught in the headlights, or as Horsey put it, simply "incurious." There have been many predictions that Biden will blow Palin out of the water. It's not a question to me whether he can or not - I'm just wondering if he can do it without embarassing himself, Obama or the party.

But overall, the first debate was impressive, and hopefully it will affect their campaigns, which has been devolving into every other mud slinging fest in the past, though both have promised a "cleaner" way of doing politics. Though my favorite quote for the debate was certainly Senator McCain, responding to what lessons we could take from Iraq:

"I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear, that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict."

This may be the reason why I suck so badly at real-time strategy games.