. . . and carries a big stick. That's the image John McCain conveyed at tonight's "town hall" debate at Belmont University in Tennessee. When he spoke about the dangers of blustering about Pakistan (pronounced Pokistan in two debates by Obama), the Republican Senator clearly made the most sense. But when Obama stressed the importance of speaking to enemies like Iran, he seemed to win the TR competition.Unlike the first debate, this one was interesting. Lurking in the background is a global economic crisis about which neither candidate, despite claims to the contrary, had a clue until just a few short weeks ago. Neither candidate really addressed the sacrifices we will certainly face in the months to come.
The wrinkly old white guy was the only person who actually had a new idea - he wants the Treasury Department to buy bad mortgages and allow homeowners to renegotiate.
McCain and Obama, who clearly have no love for each other, remained civil. They'll both be blasting each other tomorrow.
Don't ask me who won.
Moderator Tom Brokaw asked great questions, but did a terrible job controlling both candidates. If anyone lost, I'd say it was him.
29 comments:
My overall impression was that each walked away with his supporters reaffirmed in their decision. I do not see either winning over anyone they already haven't won. Net result? Status Quo, which current polling shows Obama up, and I predict unchanged by tonight despite the likely passions to be expressed hereafter below.
Obama was very slick.
Lighthouse,
I agree. No hits, no runs, no errors, in a game where Obama is up a few runs.
There was one casualty and I agree Bernie. Tom Brokaw couldn't wrangle in the candidates, just like Ann McHale can't wrangle County Council. Charlie Gibson couldn't do it either in Clinton/Obama. Where's Uncle Walter when you need him?
And after the debate, when Obama went to the people in the audience to shake hands and take pictures, where did McCain go? Must have had a full bladder. He was gone!
Obama is running for the good of the country.
McCain is running for his own good.
The race is over.
Buy bad mortgages with taxpayer money? Another bailout and government subsidy paid for by the middle class.
My friends, McCain looked and sounded like the guy who forgot where he parked his car. It's all over except for the crying.
Aboby 4:37
Look at the records. Obama has NEVER done anything that has not in the end profited his own ambitions.
McCain has ALWAYS put the country first.
Obama is the king of pork & Earmarks
McCain has absolute zero in that department.
Look at Obama's advisors: Alinsky, AYERS, Wright, Reszko Kahlidi, Raines Some of the most unamaerican and greedy hucksters ever.
Oh By the way Obama was the head attorney for ACORN and still accepts huge contributions from them
Now who is working for the country and who is working for himself?
Look at the hardcopy!
I'm definitely for "That one"!
McShame is done.
Bob, Jr,
Between paying to buy bad mortgages to keep people in their homes and paying to bail out coporate America, I choose the former. But I'm a Democrat.
Anon 7:51,
This election is beginning to gain an air of inevitabality especially among talking heads.
Here's my question. I've heard severasl say that McCain refused to shake hands w/ Obama. Is this true? I did not notice that myself, but if it is true, I think it hurts McCain.
good picture of T.R.
he speaks softly in a debate, but has no problem inciting his supporters to shout "kill him" or "terrorist" at rallies.
The John McCain i could have voted for in 2000 is not the John McCain in 2008. I say this as a Democrat and it breaks my heart to see blind ambition force an honorable man to act so dishonorably.
Bob, Jr
While I am not thrilled about bailing out people who sould not be in their home, keep in mind that 90% of the homeowners are paying their mortgages on time.
On top of that the wonderful folks in Congress initiated a new piece of legislation after the Enron failure called Sarbanes-Oxley that for all intents and purposes reduces the value of your house to zero. The WSJ had an editorial about a month ago noting that S-O had put into place a practice known as "mark to market" that adversley affets all homes in a bad market and allows for no extenuating circumstances. A full six unit apartment in a good neighborhood with all tenants paying their rent is treated the same way as a six unit apartment in a bad neighborhood with two tenants who are five months behind on their rent. There is a lot more to this then meets the eye.
After we reset the fair value of these homes in trouble it will positively affect the home prices of those paying their mortgages. Then we need to rid ourselves of Sarbanes-Oxley and we need to repeal the Community Reinvestment Act that served as the gun at the head of lenders who came up with subprime loans encouraged by Franklin Raines.
I don't think the govt. should bail out people who got no-money-down mortgages (and the couple who bought my $269,000 home in January 2007 did just that, so this nonsense has been going on even when the market had already tanked) and cant afford to live there any more. It's called living within your means. It's called buying a $130,000 house instead of a $269,000 house.
But my main objection is why are we giving taxpayer money to mortgage companies (yes, the mortgage lenders are going to get paid) when they assumed these stupid risks? Being a Democrat or Republican has nothing to do with it, Bernie.
Correction: January 2008 is when I sold my house. I can't type right when I'm seeing red.
McCain's proposal isn't anything new. It was part of the bailout vote last week. Unless he is expanding it or something...
Few points:
1. "Let us not negotiate out of fear, but let us not fear to negotiate." JFK would be the line Obama needs to steal like Palin's ripoffs of Reagan.
2. How can you say McCain was even close? I think Obama is a terrible Democratic nominee and he won by far over McCain. Atleast when Obama remembers his talking points he re words them for every crowd and debate. McCain just says the exact same lines word for word over again. Many terrible talking points. I wanted to stick a meat thermometer toward the end of the night in my ears when he spoke.
Every poll shows a major margin of victory for Obama over McCain. And keep in mins "twon halls are McCain's Strong suit."
Maybe No errors but I clearly saw Obama nail a bases loaded double with the "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" song. McCains defense is very Bill Buckner game six 1986 like. "I was just joking to a veteran buddy". ONE: if McCain could use the "internets" he would see, there is video show he was at his great Townhalls using it to whoop up the crowd.
PLUS: it shows he is no bette rthan Obma with Pakistan. Hey Bernie what about the Lehigh County GOP chair using the Barak Hussien Obama line (as did a sheriff in FLA yesterday) when McLame says he is opposed to that tactic.
I see a desperate man........ Send lawyers, guns and money, that shit has hit the fan,ah!!!!!
Spike, even though we may not agree, a Warren Zevon reference will always tip the scales!
The Banker
John McCain..angry and old..a dangerous combination! This thing is so over already! Give me a guy with some patience and brains! Let the voting begin!
You are correct. Obama stomped McCain in the TR discussion. McCain was chuckling and was silenced by Obama.
Obama: I want to be very clear about what I said. Nobody called for the invasion of Pakistan. Sen. McCain continues to repeat this.
What I said was the same thing that the audience here today heard me say, which is, if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin Laden and take him out, then we should.
Now, that I think has to be our policy, because they are threatening to kill more Americans.
Now, Sen. McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears and, you know, I'm just spouting off, and he's somber and responsible.
McCain: Thank you very much.(Chuckle)
Obama: Sen. McCain, this is the guy who sang, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don't think is an example of "speaking softly."
This is the person who, after we had -- we hadn't even finished Afghanistan, where he said, "Next up, Baghdad."
So I agree that we have to speak responsibly and we have to act responsibly.
Dude, Did you memorize the debate? I agree with McCain concerning Pakistan. Obama's suggestion that we invade another sovereign nation is irresponsible, just as it was irresponsible when Bush actually did invade a sovereign nation. I also agree w/ Obama concerning Iran. You talk to your enemies.
I questioon Chris Miller's analysis here. I admittedly have no expertise on Sarbanes-Oxley and can't say whether it is generally good, generally bad or somewhere in between.
But,I don't follow how it determines the value of my home, or an investment property, or the value of any asset owned by a private individual or company. Sarbanes-Oxley, as far as I know, applies only to publically-held companies. There seems to be a lot of room for argument over the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on the costs of smaller companies, among other things, but directly determining the value of someone's house is not one of the effects that I've heard of.
On the other hand, the value of the mortgage on my house, which is held by a publically-traded bank,is subject to valuation for Sarbanes-Oxley and other corporate accounting purposes, but any appreciation or depreciation of it affects the bank's balance sheet, not mine.
Banker,
Roland the headless Thompson gunner is a favorite as well.
Spike, never heard the song until your reference, I just watched the Youtube clip from Letterman's show - you're right, good song.
The Banker
morbuck 54
Sarbanes-Oxley gave us a procedure known as "mark to market". It forces lenders to value their assests on the market price and maintain an updating on them. In this case the assets are mortgages on homes. It works a bit like this. Suppose you have a home valued at $100K and you are told that you must sell it by 5PM tomorrow. What would you get in this market? Your price, maybe $25K, now affects all the assets in the bank. I have been unable to find out how often this has to be done but I am looking. Keep in mind that it impacts the values of those homes where the owner is paying his mortgage on a regular basis. I am not sure why this was in Sarbanes-Oxley but it sure has become a plague on housing values. With few buyers in the market and getting credit going into the crapper everyday, the value of your home or investment property goes down on a daily basis. Now you know why McCain sees why a fix is needed here. Keep in mind the housing industry involves 20 some other industries as does the auto industry.
"Now you know why McCain sees why a fix is needed here."
I'm wearing hip-waders here Chris! It was the Democrats that insisted on including and demanding the inclusion of safeguards within the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, such as Section 132, which gives the SEC the authority to suspend mark-to-marketing accounting practices within FAS 157 and Section 133, which requires the SEC to conduct a study on mark-to-market accounting standards as provided in FAS 157 and to report to Congress within 90 days on its findings. Republicans were fighting not to include these provisions within the act. They saw it as interference within the free-market system. The Republicans wanted business as usual.
Blue coyote
If I understand you correctly the Democrats were in favor of a study that would remove Sarbanes-Oxley and the Republicans were not in favor of a study or not in favor of the removal? If that is the case then shame on them.
McCain needs to lay out his plan a lot more then he has. I have two initial questions on it. First, I thought we were already doing this under the Bailout? If this is not the case is he going to ask for more money? If we add new funds,as we did for AIG yesterday, are we going to get rid of Sarbanes-Oxley, repeal the Community Reinvestment Act, and prohibit the merging of commercial and investment banks? We might want to see to it that things like mortgage backed securities never again see the light of day. it would be nice to keep regulation at a mimimun but with banking that may not be possible unless it is run in its entirety by robots
Chris,
Originally, "W"s proposal was three pages long. It was "Give me $700 billion" with no strings attached. Dems said there has to be amendments and the fight was on.
What the Dems wanted was the SEC to get rid of mark-to-marketing and back to mark-to-cost. Bankers were pressuring appraisers to unrealistic numbers and everyone knew it (including realtors) and everyone knew. But this influenced more of the commercial market than real estate.
To be fair, though, both McCain and Obama needs to be clearer in their plans in order for American voters to choose their economic future. It's not enough to say "something" has to get done. Well, no shit!
"First, I thought we were already doing this under the Bailout?"
The Fed government is supposed to come back within 90 days with their proposal, we'll see.
"If this is not the case is he going to ask for more money?"
That's a great question and I don't have an answer (I don't think anyone does but everything has a price tag, as you well know).
"Are we going to get rid of Sarbanes-Oxley, repeal the Community Reinvestment Act, and prohibit the merging of commercial and investment banks? We might want to see to it that things like mortgage backed securities never again see the light of day."
I would like to see S-O modified, because there are good provisions within S-O; I agree for the repeal of CRA, but come up with something more realistic; and I agree with the rest of your statement.
Blue coyote
From what I heard today, McCain is planning to use the money for his plan and take it from the bailout money. I would expect the SEC to get rid of it I do agree that the bailout money must be targeted otherwis it will be gone before we know it.
As to what banks did with pressure on the appraisers, I realize that happened and in some what of a defense for the appraisers the biggest thing that affected it was rolling in closing costs. I have a very good friend who is an appraiser and he was so irritated by that that his blodd pressure was on the way through the roof as we talked about it. I believe that we are going to see a real change here in that the amount down is going to go up. I don't believe we need to go to 20% but 5%-10% should be reaonable. My reason for this is simply what was 10% 30 years ago in the dollar amount is much larger today. I put 10@ down on my first house in 1968 but the house, in Nazareth, was $11,500. It was an old home that dated back to 1755 and had been divided into twins so it was an investment property. Mortgage was $102 per month. Included taxes and insurance.
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