Obama vs McCain, Round 2

Just had a few thoughts I wanted to share on the recent debate. I really don’t want this to turn into a political blog, but again, there’s not really much to talk about. I’ll try to keep things brief, and so as not to come off as an asshole, I’m going to try to leave my personal opinions out of it. This should be pretty easy, as I don’t really have any strong opinions on either of these candidates.

So, here we have the second presidential debate. The format of the first one I thought gave a slight edge to Obama, a formal setting with strict rules and guidelines, and since his campaign has been focusing on directly addressing the issues, this would appear to be his forte. And I think it is fair to say that in the minds of all those who aren’t blinded by partisan loyalty, Obama came out the winner that night. Tonight’s debate, I thought, would give the edge to McCain, as he has spent his whole campaign basically trying to befriend the American voters. I was interested to see how McCain would handle himself in this more comfortable, loose, roundtable type setting. I was surprised to see Obama pretty much blow him out of the water.

This was an Obama unlike we’ve seen before. Sure, he’s criticized McCain in the past, but never on this level. Normally I tend to be turned off by attack politics, but in this debate format it absolutely worked, and it was exactly the right time for Obama to take this strategy. McCain, on the other hand, I thought came off as weak and kind of pathetic. He kept cracking unfunny jokes to a deathly silent room, and when Obama broke the formula by essentially assigning himself some time for a rebuttal, McCain was actually whining that he was breaking the rules.

Personally, I thought Obama went a little too far in places, especially when he pretty much laid the blame for the Iraq war at McCain’s feet, but it really doesn’t matter what I think. To the American public the point has been made. Obama demonstrated the strength that voters want to see in the President, and McCain demonstrated that he is Michael Scott from the Office (Thursday nights on NBC!). Based on tonight, I think now is probably a good time for the White House to start printing letterheads reading “President Barack Obama.”

Because you really can’t have enough letterheads.