OntheWilderSide

**Please support the 15 veterans arrested at Hofstra Debate. Information is here.

Update 10/18/2008: We still don’t think this two-party only debates are fair. And, there were so many times that the candidates agreed (wrongly) on issues and sounded ridiculous, that having another voice on stage would be valuable. That said, Ian and I got to see the debate on Hofstra Campus at a screening room for alumni. (We did not get tickets for the live event.) We both thought that Obama won. I think Obama ignored questions like the nuclear issue, and Afghanistan. And, I don’t think people should vote for Obama. But, tonight, he was more presidential, and he had better answers. Even had a few good improv jokes. McCain stumbled a lot, and came off as smirky at times. Now, please got out and vote for Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney. She is much better on all the issues. Unlike McCain and Obama, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is against nuclear. She is against The War in Afghanistan. www.votetruth08.com.

Update 10/8/08: We were not that interested in a debate between the two, corporate parties, run by the corporate Commission on Presidential Debates that squeezed out all other choices and third parties. But, heck, since you found this post, we’ll tell you what we know: One passing comment on a news story said that Obama won. Politics1 has comments on it. Ron over at Politics1 described the Obama/McCain debate in Tennessee last night as “tame, dull”. -KW

I was able to watch and/or listen to a lot of the debate (but not all.) I have also found a few articles on line about who won the Presidential Debate this evening. Comments and some numbers are at the read more.

*New poll info added Saturday morning: CNN

As a Green Party member and third party activist, I say everyone lost the debate. John McCain and Barack Obama either did not want the third party candidates to participate, or gave in to a demand that the third party candidates not participate. The public lost a chance to hear more views, to know all the choices they have in November, and to hear wisdom from people like Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader who have needed ideas on the current plot for more corporate bailouts.

Though, on a more mathematical note, here is what I found so far. I was able to find media outlets in 3 different states that did on line instant polls (or similar quick polls) about the debates. (So, these polls are very unscientific.) Though, in all of the three states (one of which was from Newsday in New York) there were similar outcomes, Barack Obama led John McCain. The numbers were Barack 60 or 70 percent to McCain 30 or 20 percent.  Specifically, at 12:46am EST, the Newsday results say: McCain 27.7%, Obama 66.5% and No one 5.8%. On the contrary, Southern Political Report refers to a poll where it was Obama 42% and John McCain 41% and undecided 17%. NEW INFO 9/27: The CNN poll puts it at Obama 51%, Mccain 38%.

Another winner in this debate was the public and the blogosphere. No longer do Americans have to be held hostage to their television sets and watch the debates as passive viewers, with no input into which candidates can participate. If you had gone to reason.com, you could have found on-line video of Libertarian Presidential candidate Bob Barr sitting next to a big video screen, watching and commenting on the debates as they happened. And, on the side of that image, streaming comments from the public.

Similarly, on bloggingthedebates.com, a video of the debate had comments from the public streaming as subtitles at the bottom. I am guessing that Blogging the Debates had other ideas for presenting live commentary from politicos, including candidates McKinney, Nader, and Barr. Though, I think they had some plans that fell through, or got melted into the public participation. So, my understanding is that tomorrow, they will have video streaming with commentary (including from Cynthia McKinney.)

Now that I gave all of this commentary on numbers and who won, I would like to say this: I don’t believe in polls. I don’t believe in this kind of shallow competition. And, I think we need much healthier ways of choosing presidential candidates. Though, it is fun to collect this information and put it in the perspective of what is happening and making predictions.

I would like to see all the candidates play a round of cooperative games. Maybe like the game where you stand in a circle, tangle up your arms, and try to unwind? At times, Jim Lehrer seemed to be suggesting something like this. He constantly tried to ask the candidates to speak to each other. I think he must have been reading books on Non-violent communication.

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The CNN Poll info. Thanks to Kansas Star for leading me there:

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey is not a measurement of the views of all Americans, since only people who watched the debate were questioned and the audience included more Democrats than Republicans.

Fifty-one percent of those polled thought Obama did the better job in Friday night’s debate, while 38 percent said John McCain did better.

Filed under: Barack Obama, cynthia mckinney, election, Election 2008, elections, grassroots democracy, Green Party Websites, Green Presidential Campaign 2008, John McCain, media, News, Political Websites, president, presidential race, Press Release, third party, US Politics Tagged: | CNN, cynthia mckinney, Debates, Mississippi, polls