Saddleback

Watched the live broadcast of the forum this afternoon. It was an interesting event. Senator McCain did much better than I thought he would. In many ways the questions were much better suited to his positions. The abortion, gay marriage, and faith-based initiative questions, for example were very simple for him to be able to answer. Overall he was open and straightforward, but he continues to lose me on most key issues. Senator Obama had a harder time of it, in my view. By the very nature of his political philosophy he was forced to offer more thoughtful, more nuanced answers on the very same questions, and often in a somewhat unsatisfactory manner. He seems to have a harder time with this format. So inspiring in prepared remarks on the stump, it is much more of a struggle him to formulate good responses on the fly, even when he has really good answers in mind.

It is not the conventional wisdom, but I think this will all give McCain the advantage in the debates. But we'll see, McCain's candor occasionally gets him in trouble, and some of his answers come off as politically artificial. For example, Pastor Warren's first question. The wisest people McCain knows are General Petraeus and Meg Whitman? How convenient. ("The military and big-business", my father muttered). For Obama it was his grandmother. How very human...and non-political. So we'll see.

I'll be posting more about the election in the coming days, in part just to flesh out my own thoughts on politics and the politics of this particular moment. As with other aspects of my life, my politics defy easy description. And at this hour, I don't even want to try.

I stand corrected. The CW emerging is that McCain did triumph at Saddleback, and that this is evidence that he just may rule the debates.