The line so far:
7 innings, 96 pitches, two hits, no runs, three walks and six strikeouts.
Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
Why am I watching?
I have the Mets game on and it is 2-0 with Johan Santana pitching a gem — two hits, two outs in the seventh, earning his money so far.
Debating the debate
Hall Institute of Public Policy is hosting an online forum on the debate, To participate click here.
Post debate immediate reaction
The MSNBC crew is giving the debate to McCain as if what is most important is the winner.
I’m not sure I agree with their review — McCain was snarky and odd and sometimes rambling. I don’t see that McCain won on the economy — he had difficulty talking about economic concepts and could only go to tax cuts. I agree that Obama didn’t go deep enough into what matters on the economy, but McCain kept pushing the market as the solution.
Here is Chris Bowers on it:
Obama dominated McCain during the economic section (the first forty minutes), and kept delivering great lines the entire night: you voted for bush’s budgets, you sing songs about bombing Iran, you didn’t know Span was an ally, you think the war started in 2007, McCain says the fundamentals of the economy are strong, etc. He rarely ventured into defensive territory, as he is known to do at some times,
McCain got stronger as the night went on, but really only had two good soundbites: “Obama doesn’t understand tactics vs. strategy” and a short skit about talking with Iran. He was a bit more fluid than Obama during the second forty minutes, but it is hard for me to believe that talking about cutting wasteful spending will reassure people during the economic crisis. He made numerous mis-statements of facts–for example, he made 50 votes against clean energy while claiming he had none–but still came off reasonably well. I don’t think he hurt himself.
CNN seems to agree with me and with Bowers; MSNBC seems to be caught up in the peripherals.
Live debate blogging 13
Now we’ll get the flash response from the punditry, though I want some time to digest. A general first impression, however, is that both equited themselves well enough.
