The First Presidential Debate: Barack Obama v. John McCain (Live Blog!)

September 26, 2008 on 7:55 pm | In people, politics | No Comments

Here we go – the debate party has started at my house; there’s about 15 or so Obama supporters gathered at my apartment and squeezed into my living room watching PBS and waiting for the debate to start. Beer is plentiful, the mood is excited and hopeful, and we’re having a great time. The debate should start in 5 minutes if it happens on time.

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The debate is underway – some good questions from Jim Lehrer, and the candidates’ responses have been rather low key thus far. Lehrer is trying to inject a note of levity and get the candidates to address each other directly. Obama has been directing his responses toward McCain. McCain on the other hand, seems like he’s not willing to look Obama in the eye even while addressing him. He keeps looking at Jim Lehrer. So far it’s all been about the economy. No real foreign policy questions yet. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when it goes there…

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We’re on to actual foreign policy so far. And, at this point, we’re all very pleased with how well Obama is doing. He’s scoring some direct hits and coming off as passionate, clear-headed, and perceptive. He just threw a really good punch directly at McCain, referencing the “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” song that McCain once sang (paraphrasing the Beach Boys). Awesome. Now McCain is on to some sad war stories. Oh, brother – cry me a river.

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Wrap-up: I didn’t post any more updates to this live blog during the actual debate, but now that the party’s wrapped up and I’ve had time to clean my apartment, I can say this much: Obama won the debate. And that’s more than just my opinon. Now I’m looking forward to Thursday night’s debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, which is sure to be a circus of laughs. And don’t fret, Survival Machine readers, because I intend to get back to making relatively regular posts this week, and I’ll lay off the politics (unless something spectacular happens). Stay tuned…

Live-blogging the Presidential Debate Tonight

September 26, 2008 on 8:08 am | In people, politics | No Comments

I realize I’ve been missing in action for a while, and I have reasons (some good, some lame) for that. I’ll cover what’s been happening in science in the next few days. But first, tonight is the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. I realize it may be cancelled or postponed, but I am hosting a debate watch party at my apartment and I intend to live-blog the debate on Survival Machine tonight. Watch for a new post followed by live updates to that post starting at around 8:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time tonight. This should be interesting, to say the least! See you tonight…