OXFORD, MISS (By Adam Nagourney and
Jeff Zeleny, NYTimes) September 27,
2008 —
From
the economy to foreign affairs to
the way they carried themselves on
stage, Senators John McCain and
Barack Obama offered a dramatic
contrast to the nation in their
first presidential debate on Friday
night, mixing disdain and often
caustic remarks as they set out
sharply different views of how they
would manage the country and
confront America’s adversaries
abroad.
The two men met for 90 minutes
against the backdrop of the nation’s
worst financial crisis since the
Great Depression and intensive
negotiations in Congress over a $700
billion bailout plan for Wall
Street.
Despite repeated prodding, Mr.
McCain and Mr. Obama refused to
point to any major adjustments they
would need to make to their
governing agendas — like scaling
back promised tax reductions or
spending programs — to accommodate
what both men said could be very
tough economic times for the next
president.
For the first 40 minutes, Mr. Obama
repeatedly sought to link Mr. McCain
to President Bush, and suggested
that it was policies of excessive
deregulation that led to the
financial crisis and mounting
economic problems the nation faces
now.
“We also have to recognize that this
is a final verdict on eight years of
failed economic policies promoted by
George Bush, supported by Senator
McCain — the theory that basically
says that we can shred regulations
and consumer protections and give
more and more to the most and
somehow prosperity will trickle
down,” Mr. Obama said. “It hasn’t
worked, and I think that the
fundamentals of the economy have to
be measured by whether or not the
middle class is getting a fair
shake.”
Mr. McCain became more animated
during the second part of the
debate, when it shifted to the
advertised topic: foreign policy and
national security. The two men
offered strong and fundamentally
different arguments about the wisdom
of going to war against Iraq — which
Mr. McCain supported and Mr. Obama
opposed — as well as how to deal
with Iran.
More than anything, Mr. McCain
seemed intent on presenting Mr.
Obama as green and inexperienced, a
risky choice during a difficult
time. Again and again, sounding
almost like a professor talking down
to a new student, he talked about
having to explain foreign policy to
Mr. Obama and repeatedly invoked his
30 years of history on national
security (even though Mr. McCain, in
the kind of misstep that no doubt
would have been used by Republicans
against Mr. Obama, mangled the name
of the Iranian president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, and he stumbled over
the name of Pakistan’s newly
inaugurated president, calling him “Qadari.”
His name is actually Asif Ali
Zardari.).
“I don’t think I need any on-the-job
training,” Mr. McCain said in the
closing moments of the debate. “I’m
ready to go at it right now.”
But Mr. Obama seemed calm and in
control and seemed to hold his own
on foreign policy, the subject on
which Mr. McCain was assumed to hold
a natural advantage. Mr. Obama
talked in detail about foreign
countries and their leaders, as if
trying to assure the audience that
he could hold his own on the world
stage. He raised his own questions
about Mr. McCain’s judgment in
supporting the Iraq war.
“You like to pretend like the war
started in 2007 — you talk about the
surge. The war started in 2003,” Mr.
Obama said. “At the time, when the
war started, you said it was going
to be quick and easy. You said we
knew where the weapons of mass
destruction were. You were wrong.
You said that we were going to be
greeted as liberators. You were
wrong.”
There were no obvious game-changing
moments — big mistakes, or the kind
of sound bites that dominate the
news for days — in the course of the
90-minute debate, held at the
University of Mississippi in Oxford.
Still, the debate served as a
reminder of just how different these
two men would be as president as
they appeared for their first
extended session together before a
huge audience, including many
Americans who are just beginning to
focus on this long-lasting race.
The differences were in no small
part stylistic and visible with a
glance to the stage: a 47-year-old
black man who has been in the Senate
for nearly four years standing at
one lectern, facing a 72-year-old
white-haired fixture of the Senate
standing across from him. In many
ways, Mr. Obama was a very different
candidate than he was during the
primary battles. He answered
questions directly and
affirmatively, typically looking
right into the camera as he spoke.
Throughout the debate, Mr. Obama
called Mr. McCain by his first name;
Mr. McCain did not. The direct
engagement was encouraged by the
moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS, who
declared, “I’m just determined to
get you all to talk to each other,”
though it was an invitation that the
two men repeatedly ignored.
Mr. McCain was feisty and aggressive
but, particularly during the start
of the debate, his language and
demeanor offered a reminder of just
how much he was a creature of the
Senate, as he used phrases that were
no doubt understandable in
Washington but might have been lost
to the audience at home. He spent
much of the first 20 minutes of the
debate criticizing Mr. Obama for
supporting earmarks, special
projects sought by members for their
district.
“The United States Senate will take
up a continuing resolution tomorrow
or the next day — sometime next week
— with 2,000 — 2,000 — look at them,
my friends,” he said. “Look at ’em.
You’ll be appalled. And Senator
Obama is a recent convert, after
requesting $932 million worth of
pork-barrel spending projects.”
On Iraq, both candidates used the
stories of fallen soldiers to
support their own positions on the
war. Mr. McCain told the audience
about a New Hampshire woman who
presented him with a bracelet of her
22-year-old son who was killed in
combat. She asked him to keep alive
the mission so his death was not in
vain.
“I will wear his bracelet with
honor,” Mr. McCain recalled, raising
his right hand to show the bracelet
that still remains on his arm.
The moment he finished, Mr. Obama
said, “I’ve got a bracelet, too.” He
told the story of a Wisconsin woman
who presented him with a token from
her son who was killed in the war.
She asked Mr. Obama to end the war
so other mothers do not share her
anguish.
If Mr. Obama came into the debate
seeking to link the economic crisis
to Mr. McCain and to Mr. Bush, Mr.
McCain sought to portray his rival
as a naïve interloper; he barely
looked at him all night, and seven
times used a variation of the phrase
that Mr. Obama “doesn’t understand.”
“I’m afraid Senator Obama doesn’t
understand” and “What Senator Obama
doesn’t seem to understand” and
“Senator Obama still doesn’t
understand” were Mr. McCain’s
constant refrains, delivered with a
frozen smile and a hint of
condescension.
“A little bit of naïvete there,” Mr.
McCain said after Mr. Obama’s
remarks on a question about the
American-Russian relationship.
The two men were somewhat wary of
the debate’s unusual format — each
had two minutes to answer a
question, and then five minutes for
free-flowing and perhaps
unpredictable debate. During the
first question, they generally kept
outlining their policy views rather
than engaging directly.
“Ten days ago, John said the
fundamentals of the economy are
strong —” Mr. Obama started.
“Say it directly to him,” said Mr.
Lehrer, the moderator.
“John, you said 10 days ago the
fundamentals of the economy are
strong —” Mr. Obama said to
laughter.
“Are you afraid I couldn’t hear
him?” Mr. McCain said to Mr. Lehrer,
to more laughter.
The differences between the two men
included taxes, Iraq and Iran. When
Mr. McCain was asked how he would
deal with the economic crisis, he
talked about curbing government
spending, especially what he said
was $18 billion in spending on pet
projects.
“The first thing we have to do is
get spending under control in
Washington. It’s completely out of
control,” he said, and assailed Mr.
Obama for requesting $932 million in
earmark spending as a senator.
“That kind of thing is not the way
to rein in runaway spending in
Washington, D.C.,” he said “That’s
one of the fundamental differences
that Senator Obama and I have.”
Mr. Obama responded by assailing Mr.
McCain’s call for tax cuts for the
wealthy. “Let’s be clear: earmarks
account for $18 billion in last
year’s budget. Senator McCain is
proposing — and this is a
fundamental difference between us —
$300 billion in tax cuts to some of
the wealthiest corporations and
individuals in the country, $300
billion. Now, $18 billion is
important; $300 billion is really
important.”
Turning to Mr. McCain, he said:
“John, it’s been your president who
you said you agreed with 90 percent
of the time who presided over this
increase in spending, this orgy of
spending and enormous deficits and
you voted for almost all of his
budgets.”
Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of
having “the most liberal voting
record in the United States Senate.”
He chuckled aloud, adding: “It’s
hard to reach across the aisle from
that far to the left.”
A few moments later, Mr. Obama
responded: “John mentioned me being
wildly liberal. Mostly, that’s just
me opposing George Bush’s
wrongheaded policies since I’ve been
in Congress.”
