Post Debate Wrap Up

First, the big loser in this debate was 1) Tom Brokaw, and 2) the American people as a result of Tom Brokaw. He was insistent on maintaining some silly rule about making each finish within a minute. It's as if the whole world would collapse if he didn't get to ask all of the questions he planned on asking. This brings me to an ironic point. He was so insistent on asking each and every question that I must ask...out of all the questions submitted are those really the best ones? Talk about standard questions that give each candidate the opportunity to bloviate on talking points they have perfected over the last six months. These were the questions for that minus the very last one.

That said, I think this debate ushers in the age of President Obama. McCain had the opportunity to take Obama down, but it is clear, that he neither understands the reasons for his own tax policies nor does he understand the flaws of Barack Obama's tax policies. Obama over and over hammered McCain for his $300 billion tax cuts to corporations. At one point, he said that this would take money out of the system as if corporations keeping more of the money they earned "takes money out of the system". The fact is that our corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world. That's why we need a corporate tax cut because corporations have no tax incentive to base here. Look at Ireland. They cut their corporate tax rate to about 10% and their economy has exploded.

On the mortgage issue, both were equally clueless. Senator McCain proposed nationalizing mortgages with a proposal to give distressed mortgage borrowers brand new loans backed by the government. That's interesting because the Congress passed exactly this solution not but three months ago. Senator Obama, also in the Senate, didn't realize this was passed either and didn't say a word about how Senator McCain was proposing a recently passed law as a new idea.

Senator McCain's biggest weakness is that he simply doesn't understand and can't verbalize why Senator Obama's tax policies are so counter productive. Senator Obama wants to take from one group in order to give to another. That may have worked with Robin Hood, but Robin Hood economics doesn't work. Raising taxes on one group in order to lower taxes on another group is the road to economic stagnation. Furthermore, Senator Obama continues to claim he will lower taxes for 95% of the peole with impugnity even though this is nonsense. First, 40% of the peole don't pay any federal income taxes. You can't lower taxes on someone paying ZERO. If Senator McCain ever pointed that out, he could also point out that rather than a tax cut, Senator Obama is proposing a government welfare check for 40% of the population.

Then, at one point Senator Obama rattled off four programs that he wanted to increase spending on. Then, he had the chutzpah to say that his plan would actually lower spending, and proceeded to name ZERO programs he would cut. This fantasy proposal was never challenged and thus, Senator McCain allowed Senator Obama to propose major spending increases while boasting that he would also be able to cut overall spending without pointing out the absurdity of such a claim.

On foreign policy, Senator Obama continues to make the absurd claim that we lost UBL because we took our "eye off the ball in Afghanistan". We lost UBL in Tora Bora in December of 2001. He wound up in Pakistan shortly thereafter. We didn't go into Iraq until March of 2003. There is more than a year in between the two events and yet, according to Senator Obama, we "took our eye off the ball". We didn't take our eye off anything. He is being hidden in the Tribal regions of Pakistan. If we invade, we risk the country's government falling.

At one point, Senator Obama said he never knew a nation that performed militarily while facing economic crisis. I know of one and it is the nation he wants to President of. At the start of WWII we were still in the middle of depression and yet we performed in WWII just fine.

McCain's only real hit was his comparison of Obama's tax and trade policies to those practiced by Herbert Hoover. Yet, he needed to do much more. Obama is in fantasy land if he thinks he can spend on everything he wants to spend on. McCain needed to link the spending to th ballooning deficit, to inflation. He did none of it. This was an opportunity wasted for McCain and I believe he has run out of opportunities.