WASHINGTON: The first presidential campaign debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, held Friday night in Oxford, Mississippi, was tailor-made for those who like these candidate face-offs heavy on policy substance and light on political theater.
With 39 days remaining before election day and the US economy teetering, the two clashed on taxes, energy policy, Russian aggression in Georgia and the threat posed by Iran.
Neither made a serious mistake in an encounter that ended one of the most chaotic weeks of the campaign, nor was either able to claim a decisive victory.
To the extent either man had the upper hand in the debate, it was Obama in the early parts while McCain looked uncomfortable, and McCain in the later parts as he kept Obama on the defensive.
Thus the result may be why most of the pundits and editorialists commenting in the immediate aftermath of the debate called it either a tie or judged just a slight advantage to one or the other candidate.
There were none of those “defining moments” enshrined in debate-history highlight videos. While each candidate was sharply critical of the other at times, neither scored with the kind of zinger that made presidential debates such a winning platform for, say, Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
After the mayhem of the week in Washington and on Wall Street, it was questionable whether any event could compete in terms of drama, excitement and possibly significance. McCain’s high-risk gamble of suspending most campaign activity and returning to Washington to inject himself into negotiations over an economic rescue package threatened either to delay the debate or even overshadow it.
McCain’s advisers had warned him that the ploy may prove counterproductive for his presidential bid. Critics joked that maybe he was exhausted from parachuting into Washington to resolve the financial crisis.
Events proved helpful to Obama, who has scored high in polls on economic issues, and the turmoil in financial and credit markets pushed the economy higher on the voters’ agenda and widened Obama’s advantage as the candidate who is perceived to be more capable of dealing with it.
The debate’s first 30 minutes dealt with the financial crisis that threatens the US economy and to domestic issues ranging from budgetary earmarks to tax cuts to health care.
But when the debate turned to the announced topic — foreign policy and national security — the subject matter favored McCain, given his long experience in national security matters and divided public sentiment over Obama’s credentials to serve as commander-in-chief.
Obama sharply criticized McCain’s judgment on the war in Iraq, repeatedly telling his presidential rival “you were wrong” to rush the nation into battle. McCain aggressively pushed back, accusing Obama of failing to understand that a new approach employed by Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq would lead him to victory and mocked him for his willingness to meet with some of the world’s most brutal leaders.
They argued over Afghanistan and who knew better how to deal with the resurgence of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda. Obama said McCain and Bush had let Afghanistan slip backward because of their focus on Iraq. McCain said the same surge policy he supported in Iraq is what will put Afghanistan right.
They disagreed over how to prod Pakistan to deal with terrorist camps inside its borders. Obama said the US had wrongly been soft on the government of former President Pervez Musharraf, while McCain said Obama does not understand that Pakistan was a failed state when the former general took power.
The two men got tougher with each other when talking about the Iranians. Obama defended his view that the US should be willing to talk directly with the Iranians, then McCain mocked his rival as he imagined a conversation might go between Ahmadinejad and Obama. McCain got testier as the debate wore on, repeating that Obama is naïve and inexperienced and does not understand a dangerous world. But Obama did not shrink from the foreign policy debate, arguing that on Iraq and Afghanistan, his judgment was superior to McCain’s. “Over the last eight years,” he said, “this administration, along with John McCain, have been solely focused on Iraq. That has been their priority. That has been where all our resources have gone. In the mean time, Bin Laden is still out there. He is not captured. He is not killed. Al-Qaeda is resurgent.” At the end, most of the critics agreed that the debate was a tie, and that these two men are well-matched candidates with a lot to say.
Among the other analyses yesterday morning, The New York Times highlights the generational clash that has developed. “Barack Obama and John McCain did not even wrestle over the $700 billion economic bailout. Theirs was a generational collision, and at times it looked almost like a dramatic rendition of Freudian family tension: an older patriarch frustrated and even cranky when challenged by a would-be successor to the family business who thinks he can run it better.”
CNN political analyst Amy Holmes (former speechwriter for Republican Sen. Bill Frist) thought it was possible both candidates won last night. “On the one hand I thought John McCain won on substance. When this got to national policy, foreign policy, national security going into this debate, Barack Obama’s people said this was John McCain’s turf ... But Barack Obama, he won by not losing. There were no major gaps. He looked like he could tackle these issues.”
CBS News consultant Dee Dee Myers, who was press secretary in the Clinton White House, agreed. “There wasn’t a knockout blow on either side,” she said, “but Sen. Obama’s mission was to go in there and show he could be the commander in chief and has command of the issues that the world is facing. I think he did a good job of that. I think McCain was strong as well but I think Obama accomplished a little bit more of what he needed to do.” McCain and Obama are slated to meet two more times in the coming weeks, with debates scheduled for Oct. 7 and Oct. 15. The vice presidential candidates are scheduled to debate Thursday.
Talking about vice presidents — in another strange twist Friday, a nationally syndicated Conservative columnist, Kathleen Parker, gave a blistering assessment in the National Review Online that is sure to sting — she begged Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, to step down for the good of the party.
“Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves,” Parker said, advising Palin to resign.
