A Letter
Dear 'Joe the Plumber' ...
Jennifer the Writer here, and I'm sure you've been inundated with mail this evening, so I'll make this debate review brief. Also, you're probably consumed with the nets' distracting dial test line graphs and random battleground focus groups. So I won't keep you long.
John McCain unloaded his strongest direct criticism yet of Barack Obama tonight:, finally raising Bill Ayers and ACORN and asserting that Obama hasn't been forthcoming with his associations. He painted the Democrat as a rampant tax and spender, calling him "Senator Government." And in perhaps his toughest line of the night, he pushed back against Obama's assertion that a McCain presidency would provide four more years of Bush administration policies.
"Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush," McCain said. "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should've run four years ago."
McCain noted, too, that he's disappointed that Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson and the administration haven't moved to help families pay their mortgages and stay in their homes.
Obama, by contrast, resisted the fight. Even when McCain prodded him on. He stuck to script, pushing his health care plan and middle class tax cut and making the case that McCain has supported four of five Bush budgets, a sign of his consistent endorsement of the president's economic policies.
The candidates had a vigorous debate about abortion, a topic that hadn't been raised in their prior two meetings but about which they strongly disagree.
Here's the thing, though. McCain is losing Indie voters and women in several national polls, including the most recent Diageo/Hotline tracking polls. What our poll also revealed is that Obama has a 19-point advantage on the question of who is better suited to address the nation's economic struggles.
So, did McCain do what he needed to do to present his economic plan? Did he reach out to women and swing voters? These questions should provide the metric for assessing this debate and McCain's performance, in particular.
I'm going to let you, Joe, determine if McCain did enough to win your trust and your vote. I'll say this, he was strong but did not force a flub from Obama. And with 19 days until voters go to the polls, McCain needed to recast the conversation or introduce new information about Obama. Did he do either?
All the best,
Jennifer
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