9:00pm start time.

Obama currently favored by .5.

Can I put alpacas on Obama? I think he beats the spread against McCain.

If we did this for the veep debate, I would have put easy paca down on Palin. Biden was favored like 35 points there. PICK OF THE MILLENIUM

Someone needs to take "the gloves are off" to the WTF Translator.

It's a town hall, with questions from the audience chosen by Tom Brokaw. I'm expecting this to be in the tank for McCain, filled with Obama-centric sorts of questions -- a redux of that ugly ABC debate in Pennsylvania. The media is VERY interested in this being a horse race, and NBC corporate in particular does not want to be seen as a bunch of stinking liberal lefties.

I think Obama's timed the Keating 5 blitz for maximum effect, though. McCain blows his cool like Nicholson in a Few Good Men, and the media can't cover for him. McCain's got to stay cool, and the Keating 5 pushes all of McCain's buttons. I'm fairly sure that Obama can redirect character attacks against him toward this and other issues-oriented directions.

I'm really surprised at the lack of exposure on McCain's skeletons. I think Obama did well with the house commercials a few weeks ago. I haven't seen any ads on Keating, nearly getting kicked out of the military, troopergate or any other skeletons. I guess I'm not surprised Obama has chosen not to run with it (given the change message) but why hasn't anyone else run those attacks?

I'm really surprised at the lack of exposure on McCain's skeletons. I think Obama did well with the house commercials a few weeks ago. I haven't seen any ads on Keating, nearly getting kicked out of the military, troopergate or any other skeletons. I guess I'm not surprised Obama has chosen not to run with it (given the change message) but why hasn't anyone else run those attacks?

I spoke too soon. Obama has a new ad on the Keating/financial crisis.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/06/campaign.wrap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

http://www.keatingeconomics.com/

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/10/mccain_obama_deal_puts_limits.html

Isn't Browkaw moderating this SOB?

Unfortunately, I won't be able to watch since I have class (Statistical Inference for Management Decisions) tomorrow evening and I'm fresh out of DVR space after recording Family Guy last night...

Go GOP!

I spoke too soon. Obama has a new ad on the Keating/financial crisis.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/06/campaign.wrap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
It's not an ad, but a documentary. I think the intended purpose was to get under McCain's skin and put him on his heels. That worked better than expected. It seems he's actually recanted his famous statements about being wrong and apologetic for his Keating 5 actions:

http://www.americablog.com/2008/10/if-mccain-is-recanting-his-keating-five.html

I'm wondering if we'll see an ad on McCain's statements today, compared and contrasted with an S&L sufferer. Or, are those statements going to be first used against McCain in the debate. Unlike the attacks on Obama, this links to the current economic crisis in a major way.

The timing on this relative to the upcoming debate is not an accident.

Town hall format. LMAO!

I was on the phone for an hour but that was not a very good debate from what I saw.

And JM was not good. With JM slipping in the polls, this was not a good night.

Not one mention of Keating or Wright. No game changing punches whatsoever. Shitty questions, and Brokaw spinning them made 'em worse -- what a joke. I expected much more pointy stuff at Obama from Brokaw than what came out.

I suspect independents responded better to Obama, but we'll see the polls for the undecideds, especially in swing states.

I thought McCain may have had the better night... Obama, as usual, made more sense in what he said. But I thought McCain was more aggressive, and, in this format, may have done better. It was pretty even, though, I thought and McCain may not have done enough to really reverse things...

The priorities question hit home with me. Obama outlined it and answered it with thought. McCain seems to think we can handle everything at once, just for the simple fact that we are Americans. Wow, get that shit outta here!

I thought McCain may have had the better night... Obama, as usual, made more sense in what he said. But I thought McCain was more aggressive, and, in this format, may have done better. It was pretty even, though, I thought and McCain may not have done enough to really reverse things...
The CBS poll of undecideds, and the CNN polling overall shows a big Obama win.

On the priorities issue.

How can we handle all of it at once if we have no money (read: $700billion bailout)? Also, how can we handle all of it at once if we have a spending freeze on everything but defense, vets, and "several other things"?

McCain's plan tonight was simple: blast Obama with accusations. The difference tonight, rather than the first debate, was Obama simply smiling on those "2 shots" of both of them, and then sloughing it off. I suppose any kind of reaction could be misconstrued as a "gotcha" moment, but no reaction is more gray in conclusion, and fades as the debate rolls on.

I don't think it was a horrible debate for JM. Obama simply seemed more comfortable and tuned in. But there was one moment -- the priorities question -- where Brokaw had to repeat the 3 item list to McCain, then McCain wrote it down, then he gave a very general answer like he didn't know how to answer it.

It almost seemed like JM wasn't paying attention, or a mental lapse. Whatever the case, it made him look unsharp and old.

The priorities question hit home with me. Obama outlined it and answered it with thought. McCain seems to think we can handle everything at once, just for the simple fact that we are Americans. Wow, get that shit outta here!

I agree. McCain spewed a lot of rhetoric, but really didn't give any answers. He just wanted everyone to jump on board without giving the plan details.

I also thought he looked like a bitter old man. I didn't see the point of the hair plugs comment. He told the guy who asked the question near the beginning that he probably didn't know who Fannie and Freddie were before. He pointed at Obama and said "this guy". Then he didn't shake hands with Obama when he tried to and left the stage.

All those things combined didn't make him seem presidential at all.

The CBS poll of undecideds, and the CNN polling overall shows a big Obama win.

Good, I was only paying attention for 1 out of every 4 questions...

I thought the format didn't allow McCain (or Obama) to get into their opponents background issues (Ayers, etc).

I can't fault McCain for that, had he tried to do so, it would've been clear he was going off-topic.

He's got one more chance to "drop the gloves", I hope to God he gets the message out.

As far as the debate, I thought McCain dominated domestic issues, but Obama mopped the floor with foreign affairs. Almost a replay of Debate #1, I'd say it was a draw (which means Obama will still own the polls).

The CBS poll of undecideds, and the CNN polling overall shows a big Obama win.


I could've told you that before the debate even started.

omg conspiracy!!!!!!1111 ppl like Obama!!!11111

omg conspiracy!!!!!!1111 ppl like Obama!!!11111


If I told you Fox News had McCain winning 86% to 12% last night, you'd have said the same thing. (predictable)

Don't be a hypocrite, you know where I'm coming from...

Oh, I get you. I just find it funny how you're flailing so much...

how you're flailing so much...


How do you figure...?

See other thread... Next thing you know you'll be calling Obama a muslim terrorist.

McCain just comes accross as a bitter old man from time to time.

I don't have anything to say.

Your sig says it all, Fool.

I agree. McCain spewed a lot of rhetoric, but really didn't give any answers. He just wanted everyone to jump on board without giving the plan details.

I also thought he looked like a bitter old man. I didn't see the point of the hair plugs comment. He told the guy who asked the question near the beginning that he probably didn't know who Fannie and Freddie were before. He pointed at Obama and said "this guy". Then he didn't shake hands with Obama when he tried to and left the stage.

All those things combined didn't make him seem presidential at all.

I forgot to mention how McCain continued to walk around while Obama was talking. Obama respectfully let McCain talk before his turn. Clearly McCain doesn't respect Obama at all and he showed it with his body language the entire night.

In terms of actual content, I don't think anyone really made any gains last night. But I think Obama won based on his ability to look presidential against a guy that looked like he wanted to take his toys and go home.

Your sig says it all, Fool.

Obama carried the ball on that crossover so he's a cheater. I john McCain would never cheat you idiotic fucks dumb enough to vote for me.

In fact he plays basketball and campaigns. That's pretty extreme and radical. Do we want an extreme radical Liberal Propaganda pushing cheater in office? Do WE?

-I'm John McCain and I approved this message.

McCain is a condescending old crotch.

If I told you Fox News had McCain winning 86% to 12% last night, you'd have said the same thing. (predictable)

Don't be a hypocrite, you know where I'm coming from...

A scientific poll of UNDECIDED voters is not the same thing as a Fox News (or MSNBC, etc) poll of ITS OWN VIEWERS.

Some fact checking from last night:



McCAIN: Said he would provide a $5,000 refundable tax credit for families to buy health insurance "rather than mandates or fines for small businesses as Senator Obama's plan calls for."

THE FACTS: Obama's health care plan does not impose mandates or fines on small business. He would provide small businesses with a refundable tax credit of up to 50 percent on health premiums paid on behalf of their employees. Also, large employers that do not offer meaningful coverage or contribute to the cost of coverage would be required to pay a percentage of payroll toward the costs of a public insurance plan. But small businesses would be exempt from that requirement.
— The Associated Press

___
McCAIN: Said that Obama has voted to raise taxes 94 times.

THE FACTS: As fact-checkers have constantly pointed out, that is an exaggeration. Per Factcheck.org:
23 votes were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all; they were against proposed tax cuts.
7 were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, while raising them on a relative few, either corporations or affluent individuals.
11 votes the GOP is counting would have increased taxes on those making more than $1 million a year — in order to fund programs such as Head Start and school nutrition programs, or veterans’ health care.
The GOP sometimes counted two, three and even four votes on the same measure. We found their tally included a total of 17 votes on seven measures, effectively padding their total by 10.
The majority of the 94 votes — 53 of them, including some mentioned above – were on budget measures, not tax bills, and would not have resulted in any tax change. Four other votes were non-binding motions related to conference report negotiations.
— NBC News' blog First Read___
McCAIN: Said Obama supported a congressional earmark of "$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Ill. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"

THE FACTS: McCain's phrase suggests Obama spent $3 million on an old-fashioned piece of office equipment that projects charts and text on a wall screen. In fact, the money was for an overhaul of the theater system, which projects images of stars and planets for educational shows at Chicago's Adler Planetarium. When he announced the $3 million earmark last year, Obama said the planetarium's 40-year-old projection system "has begun to fail, leaving the theater dark and groups of school students and other interested museum-goers without this very valuable and exciting learning experience."
— The Associated Press

___
OBAMA: "We're spending $10 billion dollars a month in Iraq, at a time when the Iraqis have a $79 billion dollar surplus — $79 billion dollars."

Well, not quite. As Factcheck.org put it, "The country was once projected to have as much as a $79 billion surplus, but no more. The Iraqis have $29 billion in the bank, and could have $47 billion to $59 billion by the end of the year."
— NBC News' blog First Read

Even Fox News is saying Obama won last night:

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/10/07/debatewrap2_1007/

Ledezma -- FYI, I'm not talking the Internet polls, SMS polls, and other such garbage. I'm talking the actual polls that professional surveyors are paid by the media outlets (and others) to make. They're done with accurate cross samples the instant the debate ends, before the pundits have much of a chance to apply spin. MediaCurves and SurveyUSA gave the same "Obama by a lot" results as CBS and CNN. They've been paid for polling by media outlets at all ends of the spectrum.

You're in a business statistics class, IIRC. Do they ever get into sampling methodologies, the care and feeding of business metrics, and so on?

Jack-Knife II FTW!

Props to fool for best election year sig on a baskeball forum. Voting is closed, enjoy your trophy.

Anyway, on the debate... I got bored. Quickly. Neither candidate said anything I hadn't heard ad nauseum. At this point, the campaign is all about Obama trying to run out the clock with his ground game and a one touchdown lead.

The one thing that stood out for me, though it wasn't new, was the pakistan issue. Why does McCain repeatedly give Obama a chance to look strong on security by bringing that up? Is there even one american that doesn't agree with the idea that if we had actionable intelligence on Bin Laden and the locals couldn't close the deal, we'd go in and fuck him up ourselves? This (imo) common sense notion has been inherent in our response to 9/11 from day one.

Totally agree on the Pakistan thing.

It's like McCain thinks that ranting "you don't say it out loud" with a wink is any different than actually, well, saying it out loud.

I agree with the Pakistan thing too. I also don't understand McCain's line about telegraphing your moves that he keeps pushing. You can't just roll tanks into a country without telling them why. Why does McCain think we should secretly invade countries?

Obama wasn't implying he'd tell the world troop movements or anything.

A scientific poll of UNDECIDED voters is not the same thing as a Fox News (or MSNBC, etc) poll of ITS OWN VIEWERS.


You mean a scientific poll of moderates...?

The word undecided is a facade.

You know in '00, polls showed Gore up by 11 after the first two debates. The fact that Obama has yet to get that high should be worrysome.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/07/cnn-poll-obama-won-the-night/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/08/politics/2008debates/main4508430.shtml

http://mediacurves.com/images/SecondPresDebate.gif

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportPopup.aspx?g=55bbbb41-b3aa-4ab2-8d18-a5b97b95b6c4&q=50455

You know in '00, polls showed Gore up by 11 after the first two debates. The fact that Obama has yet to get that high should be worrysome.
Which polls? Gallup has Obama ahead by 11 today.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/111040/Gallup-Daily-Obamas-Lead-Over-McCain-Expands.aspx

and Research 2000 has had Obama up by 11 (though it's "only" at 10 now).

Gore was NEVER up by 11 after the first two debates. Here's the daily tracking poll after the second debate:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/poll/stories/oct13.html

In fact, according to Gallup, Gore was essentially never up after the first two debates:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/poll/frameset.exclude.html

Mxywned.

And also Gore won the election in millions of minds.

And also Gore won the election in millions of minds.

And ballots.

You mean a scientific poll of moderates...?

The word undecided is a facade.


I couldn't agree more. This campaign has been going on for a year and half and the election is less than a month away. I'm calling bullshit on anyone who says they haven't formed an opinion yet. Undecided definitely translates into something else like moderate or maybe decided-but-unhappy-about-the-options or brain damaged or retarded.

"Normally voting GOP / DEM but ashamed to tell the interviewer that I refuse to vote for an old man / black guy." As well you should be.

That's why there are robo-interviewers.

I used to consider myself an independent when I was in my early 20's and didn't pay much attention to politics beyond the ads on TV. I was not a very informed voter and really didn't make my mind up until close to the election.

I do agree that any informed voter is probably not undecided at this point. There are true undecideds I think, but they are probably the people who do no political research and don't have enough real information to make up their minds.

There are PLENTY of people who don't give a shit and don't know jack about the election. If America has a surplus of anything, its uninformed people.

It is harder, though only somewhat harder, to find undecided VOTERS.

That's a fair point.

Well, "he's has several versions of this already, and tomorrow, he'll probably have another one."


McCain changes homeowner plan

Mike Allen
Thu Oct 9, 12:29 AM ET

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made an overnight change in the homeowner bailout he proposed at Tuesday’s presidential debate, making it more generous to financial institutions and more costly for taxpayers.

McCain's staff says it was always meant that way.

When McCain sprang his surprise idea at the start of the debate in Nashville, his campaign posted details online of his American Homeownership Resurgence Plan, which would direct the government to buy up bad home mortgages, allowing strapped people to keep their property.

The document posted and e-mailed by the McCain campaign on Tuesday night says at the end of its first full paragraph: “Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.”

So the government would buy the mortgages at a discounted rate, reflecting the declining value of the mortgage paper.

But when McCain reissued the document on Wednesday, that sentence was missing, to the dismay of many conservatives.

That would mean the U.S. would pay face value for the troubled documents, which was the main reason Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) gave for opposing the plan.

A McCain campaign official explained the change: “That language was mistakenly included in the initial draft, and it’s been corrected. It doesn’t reflect the intentions of the initiative, which necessitated the correction and the removal of the sentence. A simple mistake.”

Obama Campaign Economic Policy Director Jason Furman said in the campaign statement opposing McCain's plan: "John McCain wants the government to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don’t recover. The biggest beneficiaries of this plan will be the same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud."

The McCain campaign estimates in both documents that the plan would cost about $300 billion.

Well, "he's has several versions of this already, and tomorrow, he'll probably have another one."

So in comparison to his springtime plan in which almost no one received any assistance, this plan is a complete giveaway to mortgage lenders and a partial giveaway to home 'owners'? Do the lenders get to keep all the last minute fees they inserted without the borrowers' knowledge? Is there any restriction for housing speculators? This plan would be a joke even for the most devout believer in bailing out homeowners. Does mccain think there are equal numbers of people with bad mortgages and those who will be pissed off about this huge ripoff by mortgage lenders?

Well, "he's has several versions of this already, and tomorrow, he'll probably have another one."

I thought the idea of negotiating the interest rates down had some merit. That way everyone gets a little help and the people who fell for the ARM craze get a lot of help.

it sounds like there is no negotiation in mccain's plan. the govt. would pay the full value of the mortgage and then set uniform standards for the homeowners based on the current value of the home. Some homeowners would definitley benefit, but the lenders get off scott-free for making stupid and predatory loans.

Isn't there a problem in that nobody knows "the current value of homes" anymore?

McCain pissed off scientists, too.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl78

Have you ever been to a planetarium? When he first brought up the projector it seemed pretty clear what kind of "projector" it was likely to be and that it was a poor choice for attacking as "needless". Bizarre science experiments are one thing (though unguided Science is much more important than it is portrayed in politics) but funding a planetarium for an urban area isn't bad government.

To be clear, asking for something doesn't mean you'll get it. It's not like requesting an earmark means you automatically get it.

It's galling that McCain cites science ventures as bad so disproportionately.

On another note, here are a couple polls taken the day after the debate, which one can compare to the polls immediately after the debate to get a sense of how immediate spin can impact "how did they do" polling:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/10/gallup-poll-sig.html

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/voters_say_obama_won_debate_mccain_more_prepared_t o_be_president

And, here's some feedback from one of the town hall folks McCain insulted by questioning his knowledge:

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/09/1523335.aspx

When we can get all the science we need for free at church on sunday, spending money for a planetarium is obviously wasteful.

Did McCain lie?

http://www.propublica.org/article/what-letter-was-mccain-referring-to-109/

Well, if nothing else, I think the American people should be concerned about his truthfulness.

A2Zt1krMprI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2Zt1krMprI

Got OGT?