Celebration Guns – Stars
Alright, I made it up to Berkeley, got some Zachary’s pizza (first non-vegan food in weeks and OMG was it good), and wanted to point out my favorite post-debate quote of the night. Via First Read, Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor: “John McCain put out his big gun, Bill Ayers, and out of the gun popped a big ‘Pow’ sign.”
That’s good stuff right there. Anyways, polling confirms that the mythical “undecided voter” thinks this was a crush for Obama. I’m not sure McCain could have won this debate no matter what the demeanor, but surely his attitude didn’t help.
And I’ve changed my mind on the effect of abortion portion of the debate. In retrospect, this was a stunning victory for Obama not because of anything he did per se, but because of McCain’s utterly dismissive approach to the “health of the mother” exemptions. I had forgotten that while some of the luster has worn off the “maverick” image, there were still quite a few people out there who believed that McCain was, if not pro-choice, at least a closet moderate on this issue. When he spoke that way about this issue, he aligned himself with the farthest of the far right and that sound you heard was women around the country saying “nope, not taking a chance with that one.”
Less than three weeks til election day (although I actually voted today – more details on that coming soon).