The debate

The weeks leading up to the presidential debate in Oxford, Miss., were certainly filled with drama and suspense. Right up to curtain time, we wondered if Senator McCain would even show up, after what appeared to be an act of political chicanery of postponing or canceling of the event by McCain "for the country's sake." Apparently, the candidate had overvalued his own influence in solving the financial crisis which had beset us as a nation of worried people. In contrast, Senator Obama was ready and willing to suspend active campaigning briefly, but there had never been any probability of his becoming a "no-show." The debate itself was a spectacle worth all the hype and spin beforehand by pundits of both parties.

Clearly, neither participant actually "won." (There was no real criteria as to judging winners or losers in such an affair.) Polls seem to declare the people favored Obama as being more specific than his opponent. There was actually no real or novel ideas given out that we hadn't heard or witnessed during the last nineteen months of multiple "one-liners" but no deathless prose. The old Navy man grunted and growled, while the young attorney stayed cool and looked dapper in his responses. Both of them could have directed their remarks to one another, rather than to the moderator, Jim Lehrer. Obama spoke with measured phrases about a wide range of topics that displayed a splendid grasp of whatever topic was mentioned. We would have wished for a bit more fire or passion. McCain looked as if he were holding himself back from erupting into a nasty tirade or two to make his point that the was experienced and "a maverick." He tarred his junior also with a conservative's epithet of "liberal" -- as if that were some inherited disease.

There will be several more such get-togethers and we'll be just as eager to find out if either of the gentlemen will have developed fresh ideas or better substance in their comments. Don't miss the forthcoming VP debate between Palin and Biden this week. How about that as a study in contrasts? And please let us hang in there with patience over the next five weeks.