Review: The First Presidential Debate 2008

At 6:00 p.m. Pacific Coast time, the much anticipated first presidential debate of 2008 took place as scheduled.

My assessment of the debate is one of extreme disappointment. I felt that neither candidate was clear in their answers to the questions asked. Case in point: on the first question, referring to the bail-out plan; neither man answered the question. All they had to say was, "Yes, I will support it, no, there is nothing I will change," or visa versa. It was a question that had basically, a yes or no answer, and neither man could do that. The moderator had to then, repeat the question to get a somewhat answer.

I appreciated Senator Obama's response when asked about the War in Iraq: "We took our eyes off Afghanistan - We took our eyes off the perpetrator.." The impression I got from this was, we did this as a nation. There was no finger-pointing, that has become so common in this presidential race. Senator McCain talked about his relationship with General Petraeus, and the 600 troops that re-enlisted so they could continue in Iraq and finish what they started; still no answer exactly to the questions.

Both McCain and Obama were in support of strengthening our borders, but neither said how they planned to implement this.

When asked about Russia, and her invasion of Georgia; Mr. Obama said "We can't allow this. We have to let them know this was unacceptable behavior." My question is, "How are we going to do this?" Mr. McCain's response was, "we need to keep our eyes on the Ukraine."

I started watching 'Headline News' about an hour before the debate began, because I wanted to see the preparations and the predictions that were being made about each, Senator McCain and Senator Obama; what they would say and their performance.

It was predicted that Mr. Obama's advisors would instruct him to take every opportunity he could to point to the failed Bush Administration, and he did. I kept waiting for Mr. McCain to tell him, that was the Bush Administration, not mine. But he didn't. It was predicted that Mr. McCain would concentrate on his vast experience; and he did. There was no response that Mr. Obama could give to this, as it was fact. There was nothing for him to do, but stand there gracefully while Mr. McCain talked. Well, at least he was quiet.

Both men used so much rhetoric that I felt that I had to weed through all of their answers to get any semblance of an answer.

It did start to get a bit heated toward the end, with Mr. McCain telling Mr. Obama that he felt he lacked the experience to be president.

After the debate was over, people were invited to call on their cell-phones and vote for who they thought the winner of the debate was. About an hour later they announced the results: 82% voted McCain won, 16% voted Obama won, and 1% was unsure. I don't know what happened to the other 1%. This morning when I turned on Headline News it was announced that a polling organization (I didn't catch which one) took a poll of watchers, and they announces Mr. Obama won by about 27%. They did say though, that most of the people polled were Democrats.

In my opinion the debate was pretty much a draw. I liked and approved of some of Mr. McCain's responses, and I liked and approved some of Mr. Obama's. I guess I'll just have to watch the next debate to make up my mind.