The Debate as a Brown/Bengals game

Tonight's debate between Barack Obama and John McCain was your typical Browns-Bengals game--not much in the way of a coherent game plan, lots of missed opportunities, and fumbles, penalties, and turnovers galore. Josh Marshall of TPM says that both candidates brought their "A" game. Sure, but they brought Derek Anderson's "A"game instead of Peyton Manning's.

The presidential debate didn't develop any kind of early rhythm because both candidates failed to answer questions about whether they would vote for the bailout legislation and what plans they would cut, delay, or reduce as a result of the financial crisis.

It was embarrassing. This debate was for a lot higher stakes than Rick Warren's Saddleback forum and Lehrer was asking genuinely important questions. But he just couldn't get straight answers from the candidates. He tried to get an answer on which programs would be cut four times before getting anything from McCain. Obama never did say what he would cut or delay which was bizarre because he's talked about delaying some of his proposed spending on infrastructure while on the stump.

I was more annoyed with Obama because I support him and expect to see him do well. But Obama began his first couple of answers by reciting principles rather than getting to specifics. I've been on television a couple of times and I know it's hard to be one's normal clever self in front of television cameras. But impromptu televsion performance is a fundamental task of American politicians and Obama should be doing better.

There! Now I sound like I'm telling my students that they're underachieving.

Actually, Obama did surprisingly well on issues like Georgia and Afghanistan. However, he couldn't seem to get his mind around his own withdrawal plan for Iraq and didn't even mention that the Iraqi leadership and people fully support his plan. Like a football team that hasn't played together very much, Obama just couldn't get himself in sync on Iraq or the federal budget. McCain didn't do that great either, but McCain was more confident and aggressive in his mediocrity.

Fortunately for Obama, McCain wasn't nearly good enough to recover from the widespread disgust over his gamesmanship in "suspending his campaign." In fact, I could see where viewers and the media would have been found reasons to confirm their developing contempt for McCain. That's especially because McCain had a tic where he refused to look at Obama while he was talking. Arrogance and condescension don't look good during presidential debates. They especially don't look good when the candidate is developing a reputation for being a jerk as McCain is right now. McCain's refusal to look at Obama looked bad and part of the reason for that is that McCain had a smug smirk on his face while he was looking down. That in itself might have killed McCain for this debate. America has had enough of George Bush's smirking over the last eight years.

In the final analysis, I view McCain as winning on debate points because he took the initiative and was more aggressive and more into it. But I can also see the debate as confirming the media and many undecided voters in the thought that John McCain should not be president.