1st Presidential Debate

The first presidential debate of 2008 took place on September 26, at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. The 90 minute debate featured the two presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barrack Obama, and was moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS. Although Iraq and the nation's growing economic crisis were the main topics of the debate, both candidates made several accusations and biting remarks about one another. To begin the debate, Obama indirectly blamed McCain for the growing financial crisis of the nation by comparing his rival to President Bush. Obama reasoned that McCain's support for our current president will only lead to more financial problems in the future. Later in the debate, McCain focused on Obama's age, calling him inexperienced. McCain stated that Obama would be an unsafe president for the hard times that the nation is experiencing.
If I was to watch the debate without any background information on the two candidates, i would probably lean towards Obama, based on how well he handled the questions and offensive comments. At the very beginning, McCain began coughing and stumbled over a couple words. His ideas were also somewhat hard to follow and comprehend at some points of the debate. Obama appeared to have been very calm and collected. Personally, i feel that Obama took charge of the debate for the most part. Overall, I felt that this debate was interesting. It was funny to see both candidates make negative remarks about each other. I expected the candidates to argue more about their opinions on the very controversial issues of today. But, instead both candidates spent majority of the 90 minutes trying to make the opposing side look bad.


Articles:
The New York Times
C-SPAN