Running Scared

McCain, Obama fail to agree on town halls:

"Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in a statement Friday that he offered to meet McCain in five joint appearances between now and the Nov. 4 election.
But only one of those was a town hall meeting. McCain wanted them to appear together in 10 town hall meetings that would be unscripted with questions from voters in the audience."

Well, you knew that Obama wouldn't go for that many unscripted debates - ones where he was less likely to get the questions ahead of time.

He is a terrible speaker from the cuff. He can't seem to organize this thoughts ... he stammers & studders because he is trying to listen to the answer he is giving ... now that's not to say he isn't intelligent - there is not correlation between stammering & intelligence - but it makes him very self conscious.

And McCain is a very effective public speaker (having had more experience in it .. cough cough) and would run rings around Obama -- although I though Obama was part of the Harvard debate team?

Actually I kind of agree with McCain - 10 meetings around the nation would be a better gauge of the country than just one ... and the 'scripted' debates like the ones they had earlier in the year don't really give a clear picture of their positions because they are so rehearsed that what you really hear are the opinions of their 'handlers'.

I prefer the Town Hall meeting debates where the candidates get to come out from behind the podiums and get to interact with the public no matter the party affiliations.

I also like the debates where the candidates sit on stools instead of standing behind podiums - I like them ran by local news people instead of the ones from the national news, they have different questions that deal with problems in their area -- those things that the national guys tend to forget or can't really relate to.

Everyone knows their positions on the war, Gitmo, taxes, health care, abortion, etc. etc. i want to know some of the more pertinent stuff for everyday life.

Things like -- Ford motor company closing plants ... unions that cause people to lose jobs instead of keeping them ... unions forcing you to join in order to get a job .... schools forcing children to walk along highways instead of providing buses ... colleges pricing themselves out of students - you either have to be rich or on a Pell Grant (if you are middle class, you don't qualify) or on some sort of scholarship ... how about what will happen to people who don't live in a 'flood plane' but are experiencing it this year but the insurance companies won't pay because they didn't have flood insurance?

Those are the type of questions that need to be answered. Answers that actually effect people's lives depending on where they live.

Questions that get pushed to the background or are covered by 'euphemisms'.