I did not enjoy the debate last night. It was much more fun watching Bush and Gore in 2000. These two candidates are both painful to watch in their speeches and in their debates. Well somehow Hillary and Barak were more entertainingly gamey, but McCain and Obama... I don't know. McCain seems a little desperate and sad, and Obama also desperate and sad. The Rick Warren interview was actually a much more positive presentation of both their experiences. Then McCain was competently fatherly and Obama was like a little boy sitting on his mother's lap telling how his day was at school. Both seemed to feel peaceful. Not so last night.
McCain was grasping at straws, and according to Daniel Larison, got some of his facts wrong. Obama was rhetorically better, but mechanical, not inner-driven, except when he got upset. Which gets me to what I'm looking for. What drives these two? I am convinced that McCain loves America and has the traditional American work-ethic, which is dying off in this country. Used to be people worked hard because it was the right thing to do. Now people work hard to win a competition, not that America hasn't always been competitive. After talking with George trying to figure out Obama's motivation, he said that insiders and commentators (I don't listen to them much anymore) characterize Obama as arrogant and self serving. I do not get the feeling that he loves America. This is different than loving the disenfranchised. There is something to the idea of the whole is greater than the parts. America transcends individual circumstance, and that should not be lost. I was a young adult when Ronald Reagan was president, and he didn't always get his facts straight either, but he was able to communicate and engender love for our country. McCain I think shares that love, and even if he is paranoid about Russia and misinformed about Pakistan, America needs an advocate right now, and that's why I'll vote for him.
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