The First Presidential Debate Analysis

Last nights presidential candidacy debate was highly important. It was replete with the various views from each candidate, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. But Obama I still believe did a better job with the speech than McCain. I would give his overall performance last night a 7 out of 10 and I would give McCain a 5 out of 10.
McCain, I noticed, constantly interrupted Obama throughout the debate and wouldn’t let him speak. I feel that Obama handle all of the interruptions very well and gave a smile to show that McCain’s emotional interruptions didn’t bother him. He waited until McCain was done speaking or even took a breath and would interject to counter the claims made by McCain by saying “let’s talk about this” or “let me clear this up first”. McCain seemed to just try to disagree with everything Obama said to make him look bad while Obama was smart by starting some of his answers to questions with “I do agree with Senator McCain that…” and “McCain is one hundred percent right about…”. He also didn’t just try to pad his answers to questions with irrelevant stories to make himself look good. He got down to business and when he was asked to answer a question he answered them, sometimes generally but he was able to look into the camera and address the American people.
I also thought it was smart of Obama to layout his plans to do things in steps. Although each of the steps wasn’t completely specific, it showed a little of what he would do when he became president to clear up certain problems. An example of this would be when they were talking about the national debt plan. Although both candidates didn’t really seem to talk specifically about what they are going to do about it, Obama, I feel addressed it better, laying out his general plan in four steps. He said first, he would “make sure we (the government) have oversight” over the whole plan. He then said he would then make sure that tax payers can get there money back. His third step was to make sure than none of the money used in the plan went completely to the big CEOs of companies so it wouldn’t be used irresponsibly. The fourth step was to make sure that homeowners were helped first and foremost. One of my favorite quotes from the debate made by Obama was that he wants to “grow the economy from the bottom, up”.
A few things I didn’t like that Obama did was that he brought most of the topics and questions discussed back to his plan for the economy by stating that he would help get jobs for the American people. Even the Iraq war and what we would do with Iran and Afghanistan was brought back to the economy with eliminating the dependence of oil in the Middle East and bringing in renewable resources such as wind power and solar power.
The thing that bothered me the most was a plan for the economy that McCain brought up that Obama hadn’t thought to create himself (mostly because he may not have had the same connections and his plan is solely for the working people of America). Obama says that McCain is just looking to cut taxes for the rich and big corporations which may be partially true. But as far as McCain is concerned he really wants to cut taxes on them so that it won’t be such a hassle for them to pay more money while juggling a business. This way, with a tax break on the big businesses, it will alleviate some of the pressure and open up more jobs so that they don’t go bankrupt and the Americans that need the jobs won’t go somewhere else or to another country where there is a bigger tax break (like Ireland, McCain brought up). Although I don’t trust the large corporations very much, I believe that McCain’s plan could have the potential to work. His plan seems a little easier to put into progress while Obama’s would take more time if he were to cut taxes on 95% percent of the people and raise taxes the people with salaries of about or over $250,000.
Overall I feel Obama did the best job out of the two when it comes to the first debate of the year. He spoke well and persuasively. By the end of the debate, they went to a room full of people that hadn’t decided who they would vote for. The commentator addressed the group and asked who they thought did better with the debate. A few raise their hand for McCain, but the majority of the previously undecided voters raised their hands for Obama. I believe this just goes to show and solidify who the American people, the people that really matter, want and should want as their next president of the United States.