Presidential Debate: Whomever Wins, We all Lose

4 Comments »October 8th, 2008

Having watched last night’s debate with breathless anticipation (ok, that’s I lie – I was bored to sleep), it’s becoming clear that both the Obama and McCain campaigns have devolved into a rhetoric of repeated talking points. The sound of suction is deafening. Obama was on top form, showing his usual college cool, but for the first time he is showing signs of retreading the tires on his platform. Nothing new fresh or substantial came out of the debate, other than the revelation that John McCain apparently thinks Obama is one of his Grandchildren – “That one”.

John McCain won on creep factor. The disturbing way he stalked the room, lumbering like an agitated grizzly bear inspired no one. But it was the condescending tone he took with his audience that made me most uncomfortable – painting middle-Americans as ignorant. “You’ve probably never heard of Fannie Mea before this crisis”. Never heard of one of the world’s largest financial entities? And his lame attempt at identifying with the digital world showed his own generational disconnect, in his unworldly observation that “some of you here may have even used eBay”. Some of you? That’s like saying some of you may have even used a telephone. Pathetic.

So I walked away from the debate with no real sense that either candidate has answers to our country’s greatest problems, other than the usual political weeble wobbling and rhetoric that defines Washington culture. That’s not change I can believe in.