John McCain had a very strong debate tonight. It's too bad for him that it came on a night when Barack Obama was nearly flawless.
The debate began with questions on the economy and for thirty minutes Obama answered those questions with the kind of substance that I suspect anxious voters wanted to hear and with exactly the right tone - empathic, aggravated and determined. Most important, he spoke to voters in their own language. In his first answer, in response to a question about things the government can do to help average Americans through these tough economic times, Obama spoke of a $400,000 junket that AIG executives took after the government bailed them out. "Treasury should get that money back," he said, "and those executives should be fired." Sure, a little demagoguery. But it's exactly the kind of story - in a debate that included back-and-forth accusations and lots of statistics - that voters will remember and talk about tomorrow with their neighbors.
McCain took that first question and he turned immediately to energy. "Americans are angry, they're upset and they're a little fearful. And it's our job to fix the problem. Now, I have a plan to fix this problem and it's got to do with energy independence."
It didn't work. Two months ago, when gas prices were nearing $5 and the cost of oil dominated the headlines, the McCain campaign deftly used anxieties about energy as a proxy for anxieties about the economy. So when McCain proposed to lift the ban on offshore drilling, voters responded positively and the polling reflected their enthusiasm.
But while energy issues remain important and cannot be separated from the broader economic picture, the convulsions in world markets over the past two weeks and the need for a $700 billion federal bailout have rendered worries about gas prices and energy independence to second-tier status. It's not that these issues don't matter, it's just that they matter less now than they did over the summer. He later broadened his answer to include spending, tax cuts and his jaw-dropping plan to have the federal government buy up "the bad home loan mortgages in America" to "let people make those payments and stay in their homes." So bigger government is bad, quasi-governmental entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "ignited" the current economic crisis, too much government spending is leaving us broke and we want the U.S. Treasury to renegotiate individual home mortgages? Seriously? No thanks.
Obama's advantage continued with the next question, when Tom Brokaw asked about possible Treasury secretaries in a McCain or Obama administration. McCain, no doubt to bolster his bipartisan bona fides, named Warren Buffet, an economic adviser to Obama.
Both candidates gave good answers to Brokaw's question inviting them to rank health care, energy and entitlement reform as priorities. "We have to prioritize just like a family would," Obama said, one of many answers he gave meant to communicate that he understands what families are going through.
After Obama offered his ranking, McCain strongly took issue with it. "Frankly, I'm not going to tell that person without health insurance that you'll to have to wait. I'm going to tell you Americans that we're going to get to work right away. And we'll get to work together and we'll get them all done," he said.
The middle third of the debate - with discussions about Social Security, the environment and health care - was unremarkable and, if I can speak for the millions of Americans who fell asleep during those 30 minutes, boring.
But viewers who woke up for the final thirty minutes saw some sharp differences and sharp exchanges on foreign policy. The most memorable came after McCain noted that his hero, Teddy Roosevelt, advised that Americans "talk softly and carry a big stick." He said of Obama: "Senator Obama likes to talk loudly" and criticized Obama's views on Pakistan.
But in his best answer of the night, Obama calmly explained his position on Pakistan - which strikes me as a very reasonable one - and turned the charge back against McCain.
I want to be very clear about what I said. Nobody called for the invasion of Pakistan. The audience here today heard me say, which is that if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin Laden and take him out then we should. Now that, I think, has to be our policy because they are threatening to kill more Americans.
Now Senator McCain suggests that you know I'm green behind the ears and that I'm just spouting off and that he's somber and responsible. Senator McCain - this is the guy who sang Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran. Who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don't think is an example of speaking softly. This is the person who after we hadn't even finished Afghanistan where he said - next up, Baghdad. So I agree that we have to speak responsibly.
McCain began his next response by explaining and defending his joke on Iran. Anytime McCain spends time on the defensive about foreign policy, he is losing.
McCain had several very good answers - on Russia and on the question of whether Russia is the new Evil Empire. "Maybe," he said. "If I say yes that means we're reigniting the Cold War. If I say no, it means we're ignoring their behavior." That might have seemed like a dodge to people watching, but it was the correct answer - some straight talk, if you will.
And if Obama was nearly flawless, he wasn't flawless. One bad moment came when he told Tom Brokaw that he was doing a good job as moderator. It was a joke, of course, but as one friend emailed: "His default is condescension." He also suggested that his proposals would result in a "net spending cut," which is preposterous. There were other places where Barack Obama made dubious claims - some of which might even get "fact-checked" by mainstream media outlets.
Obama's test in the first debate was to present himself as a plausible president, as a guy who didn't seem out of place on stage at a presidential debate and wouldn't seem out of place delivering a State of the Union address. Much as I'd disagree with the policies in such a speech, it was clear that he passed that test. Tonight, his job was to persuade voters - particularly independents - not only that he could be president but that he should be president. I suspect polling in the next couple of days will provide evidence that he passed that test, too.
