McCain's Got Nothing To Say

Woooo!!! 3rd and final debate last night!  Of course, I was rooting for Obama, but I was really interested to see if either of them had anything, ANYTHING new to say, or if it would simply be the same old, same old.  Even Bob Schieffer agreed: "By now, we've heard all the talking points, so let's try to tell the people tonight some things that they - they haven't heard."  And, of course, we were both disappointed.  This far close into the campaign, there's nothing else to say, it's all been said before - they're just fighting over every small difference in their policies, trying to win those few percentage points in the battleground states.  

But one thing really struck me hard - McCain focused so much on attacking Obama, it just made me want to puke.  On the majority of the issues, he would make an attack on Obama's policy, and then seem to ignore what Obama said to refute the attack - because he would then repeat his attack, with different wording, in his next chance to speak.  Here are several examples I picked up on:

TAXES

McCain used an encounter with a plumber named Joe from Ohio to accuse Obama of planning to raise his taxes.  Obama refuted the attack, saying that the plumber would most likely be making less that $250,000 a year, and so therefore would not see a tax raise.  McCain then came right back at him, saying all over again that Obama would raise his taxes.

NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING

McCain made his good ol' attack about Obama's relationship to Ayers, and then threw in a new one, where the organization ACORN was "now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy" - and then having the gall to insinuate that Obama was connected to them.  Bizarre claim, but Obama refuted the attacks with skill, proving there was no justification for McCain's claims.  (All of this is old hat, been said before by both of them).  But does McCain listen? No, of course not!  He comes right back with more of the same, taking a quote from a book Ayers wrote way, WAY out of proportion and still insinuating Obama had something to do with ACORN.

HEALTH CARE

McCain goes back to his good buddy Joe the plumber, and claims that under Obama's plan, Joe would have to pay fines if he didn't take Obama's health care plan.  But Obama refutes this point, saying that Joe, as a small business owner, would be exempt from the health care requirements that big businesses would have to cover.  But McCain wasn't listening, because he repeated himself once more, saying that, under Obama, Joe the plumber would have to pay fines if he didn't provide the health care that Obama wanted.

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that McCain really has nothing to go on now.  He's slipping in the polls, the voters trust Obama way more than McCain on economic issues, and his policies really don't look that different than Bush's.  So what does he have left to run on?  Nothing but (incorrect) attacks on Obama's policies, and, what's really troubling, accusations calling into question Obama's character.  I believe I've said this before in an earlier post, but it seems like I need to say it again: McCain is calling out the worst in American Politics, by getting down and dirty in his attacks against Obama.  We, the voters of America, need to show him and his fellow Republicans that we are not going to accept any longer the terrible and demeaning campaign methods that "elected" Bush into office.  Vote Obama into office on November 4, and vote out an era of negative campaigning.

Source: CNN Transcript of the Debate