US Presidential Debate 2
Thursday, October 9th, 2008Ok, we’ve got through two presidential debates and one VP debate.
First of all an interesting fact. The VP debate was the second most viewed debate in history, 70 million viewers ( Carter/Reagan debate in 1980 drew about 80 ). More people watched it than the 2 presidential debates. An obvious explanation for this oddity is that people are more interested in entertainment than in politics. A lot of viewers tuned in to see what new goofups VP republican candidate Sarah Palin might make. Well, they were disappointed, she might not have answered all the questions asked, but she didn’t mess up as in some previous interviews. So, back to politics.
As to the presidential debates, most polls gave Barack Obama as the winner or tie. As Obama is ahead in the national polls, a tie is a win for him. Senator McCain had to pull some rabbit out of the hat, but no rabbit.
At this time Obama has the election sown up, hes ahead in “electoral votes” and in the general national polls. How much ? The place to see polls is realclearpolitics.com, but he’s from 4 to 8 percent up. Worse for McCain, Obama is eating away at some previous “safe” republican states.
So, there being only one more debate next week and about three weeks to go, the future looks grim for McCain. Obama has only to hold, although he seems to be trying to get farther ahead, not holding.
The Republicans still might win, if in the next three weeks something unforseen happens. As Obama is a pretty cool character, it seems unlikely (but not impossible) that he might do or say some gamechanging thing. Another possibility is some outside event that would impact on popular opinion, like a 9/11 attack that might make everyone run to McCains side for supposed security ( McCain is seen as tougher in this respect). Lastly, but even more unlikely, if some harm came to Obama. There are still quite a few people in the US that have hard racist ideas. This last would be a disaster for the US democracy, but America has a very violent history regarding presidents.
Next week we have the third and last presidential debate, we’ll see what that brings. My bet, not much.
