Obama vs McCain

[plutherus]

OK, as promised, here's a bit more in-depth reaction to what's being called the "Saddleback Forum", in which Obama and McCain were both asked the same series of questions in a church by a televangelist.



I want to clarify a little bit about my earlier comments. I do not agree with Obama's decision to give this guy and his fellow Christianists such a major role in the election cycle. I disagree with his decision, but I realize he has reasons, and not all of them are purely strategic. I recently heard that 30% of Evangelicals are planning to vote for Obama (as opposed to Kerry's less than 1% of that voting block), so perhaps it's working. I'm obviously not going to change my support for Obama just because I disagree with one part of his campaign strategy.

Then again, as dragon_gunner pointed out, wouldn't it be cool to see a forum where all the questions asked were culled, instead of from fundamentalist Christians, from Nobel laureates?

I also wanted to clarify any impression I might have left in my earlier posts that I view Obama and McCain as virtually identical. If anything, I think their reactions to the questions in the forum did a good job of highlighting the very important differences between them.

The following is based on a transcript of the forum I found here, as well as my own impressions while actually watching it, and discussing with the rest of the people in the room.

The forum opens with the CNN commentator clarifying that this is not a debate. I'm glad they did that, because in the past when candidates have been asked a series of questions without followups or the ability to question each other, it has been billed as a debate. So, that CNN recognizes that that's not the case is a good thing.

Further correction to my earlier comments: The televangelist is Rick Warren, who is actually quite famous, although this may be the first time I've heard of him. He opens with the statement "We believe in the separation of church and state, but we do not believe in the separation of faith and politics, because faith is just a world view, and everybody has some kind of world view." So, he does, contrary to what I said earlier, believe in the separation of church and state. The difference between that and "separation of faith and politics" is left as an exercise for the reader. But to claim that fundamentalist christianity is "just a world view" is disingenuous at best.

Ahem. Anyway,

The forum is divided into two parts. He asks a series of questions of Obama, then asks the exact same series of questions of McCain, who was unable to hear Obama's answer from his "cone of silence" backstage.

One more note. I'm just looking at the answers given in this particular debate. I am not a journalist, my blog is not a news source, and I am making no attempt or pretense to be unbiased or "fair and balanced". Like McCain, I am steadfastly partisan. I will be voting for Obama come November and unless something a lot more earth-shattering than a sex "scandal" or the current accusation that he was able to pay only 1.6 million dollars for a 1.9 million house surfaces between now and then, I don't see that changing.

I voted for McCain in the 2000 primary, but he has since betrayed everything he claimed to stand for then, and I see no reason to ever trust him again.

So, in case you're one of the people who don't know me but for some reason read my blog, that's what this is about.

I'm also not doing a whole lot of editing here, so typos and strange sentence structure may occur. This takes long enough to write without bothering with a second draft.

So now on to Saddleback Mountain, part 1: Don't Step in the Leadership.