2008 Woodie Awards
No Clear Cut Winner in First Presidential Debate
Mike Heaton
Issue date: 10/8/08 Section: Op Ed
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The candidates were asked a series of questions on what they thought about the Bailout Plan and the current state of the economy. I found it interesting that the first statements of the debate set the tone for most of the debate.
Obama won the coin toss to speak first. He immediately tried to tie McCain to George Bush, saying that the financial crisis "…is a final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies promoted by George Bush, supported by Senator McCain, a theory that basically says that we can shred regulations and consumer protections and give more and more to the most, and somehow prosperity will trickle down." Here he attacks a stalwart of conservative beliefs, Reaganomics, which supports giving tax breaks to corporations and the rich in the hope that the benefits will eventually trickle down to the lower and middle classes. This was the first of many times Obama would try to pin McCain to the policies of Bush.
McCain, on the other hand, opened with an olive branch. He offered his thoughts and prayers to the democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer. McCain agreed that the financial crisis was momentous and included a joke about his age.
These two opening statements could not be anymore different. Obama came out swinging, immediately labeling McCain as four more years of Bush - a political death sentence these days. McCain was the lamb to Obama's lion. He strived towards bipartisanship by mentioning Sen. Kennedy and had a more relaxed tone in the beginning by making the joke about his age.
It was for this reason that many thought that Sen. Obama won the first portion of the debate. He effectively labeled McCain as a supporter of President Bush's "failed economic policies" and as a deregulator. McCain was on the defensive from the beginning.
Obama wasn't certain if he supported the Bailout Plan, and added, "The question, I think, that we have to ask ourselves is how did we get into this situation in the first place? Two years ago, I warned that because of the subprime lending mess, because of the lax regulation, that we were potentially going to have a problem and tried to stop some of the abuses in mortgages that were taking place at the time." He continued to say, "…we're also going to have to look at how is it that we shredded so many regulations? We did not set up a 21st-century regulatory framework to deal with these problems. And that in part has to do with an economic philosophy that says that regulation is always bad." Here, Obama is saying that the reason for the current economic downturn is due to lax regulation brought on by Bush, supported by McCain.