It was a planned subliminal move, aimed at those Republican morons Balaga noted exist in the GOP.

Obama got it on points, but only barely.

Gramps was his usual prickly defensive self, as always, co-opting Obama’s responses, particularly when Obama was tapped to go first.

Still, neither candidate convincingly said a whole lot to decisively sway the truly uncommitted voter one way or the other. Thanks to the financial melt-down that is now scourging the global economy, a lot has politically changed in this race. Both candidates have diametrically oppositional views about how to best put America on the right track. But, neither broke free of the political center. Both were so busy playing nice until neither worked his view of the changed political landscape to the greatest advantage in this debate. Each got his fair share of adversarial shots over his opponent’s bow. Yet both went on to work these pivotal shots so piss poorly, until little to no damage was done to his opponent. It was a frustration that became tedious inside the first ten minutes of this show.

One thing for me that was particulaly disappointing was that neither expressly qualified what he, as President, was willing to put on the back burner until this Wall Street Melt-down had run its course, nor ventured to guess how long this Wall Street melt-down was going to afflict our economy. I thought they both needed to remove their rose colored shades to point out that the Depression of the New Millenium would probably last longer their potential two terms, offering to implement stiff regulatory legislation to prevent this from happening again. We’re approximately where we were during the last Great Drepression when Roosevelt came to Office. One of them could have drawn a lesson from history to stress that what he offered was just the beginning the healing that will take years to fully reclaim America from the ruse of Reaganomics and trickle-down VooDoo economic retardation.

The economically debilitating fruits of unchecked unregulated capitolism and laisez faire trade and commerce are the produce of trees planted nearly four decades back during Nixon and Agnew, not just eight years back. Every administration since Carter, including Clinton, contributed to this fiasco, not just Dumya. Twenty-six of those years, McCain and folks like Charles Keating and Jeb and Neil Bush campaigned fiercely to bring on this consequent melt-down with their steady drumbeat of deregulation to consilidate wealth in the hands of a few wealthy people, to the detriment of the now lost middle class. They helped Grover Norquist fulfill his dream of using disaster capitolism to prove that government is not the answer, and, thus, needs to be reduced to the size where it can drowned in a few inches of water in a bathtub to allow corporations to be the smartest folks in the room. All of that is the real elephant in the room neither candidate wants to openly point out and discuss eradicating.

There’s still considerable daylight between McCain and Obama on economics (if not foreign policy) so I think it’s still important to vote for Obama. However, he’s going to have to stop letting McCain get away with talking over him during the shirtail comments (nothing Obama can really do about McCain smirking condescendingly while O. is talking). At close when wives were on stage etc. Obama did not seem happy, barely holding his temper. Hope Michelle tells him he has to be more aggressive and condescending right back to McCain, even if it seems as if he’s beating up on somebody’s nice great-grandpa. I’m not going to watch the post-mortems on my laptop; whole debate was depressing enough.

What do we do out here when neither of the candidates is worth a damn.??It’s a parade of fools.

Not that it really matters very much, and is O/T here, but….I just saw Obama arriving in MS. from his plane. He had a garment bag over his shoulder that, it’s easy to conclude, holds his suit for tonight’s debate. Photo op? I don’t think that his campaign has THAT much respect for the intelligence of the American voter (especially in the South)to attempt to portray him through thet “subtle” act as a “regular” guy. I really believe that he’s “comfortable” carrying his own stuff, as I am when I travel. He IS, a “regular” guy, folks.  My opinion, of course. But, of course, feel free to believe whatever you WANT/CHOOSE to believe. It’s a free country, right? Yeah, sure. Free. Bullshit!