Here is my commentary on the third Presidential Debate, first posted at Asian-Americans for McCain:
At tonight’s debate, McCain exposed Obama’s agenda for what it is — a tax raising, government expanding, job killing, income redistributing, big spending policy for America. In other words, it was the typical liberal plan that does nothing more than hinder the American dream for so many hard working families.
McCain named one hard working American in particular, Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio plumber that got Obama to admit that his backwards economic plan was meant to “spread the wealth around.” In defending Joe the Plumber’s right to prosper, McCain hammered away agressively at Obama’s plan to increase taxes on small business, rightly explaning that many small businesses are included in the tax bracket on which Obama wants to raise taxes (See Irene’s excellent explanation of the impact of Obama’s economic plan on small business here and here).
But McCain wasn’t just speaking to Wurzelbacher. He was speaking to all the Joe Plumbers across America that simply do not want to be punished for working hard. McCain said:
“Why would you want toincrease anybody’s taxes right now? Why would you want to do that — anyone, anyone in America — when we have such a tough time, when these small-business people like Joe the plumber are going to create jobs unless you take that money from him.”
Obama went on to defend his tax plan by arguing that people like billionaire Warren Buffett could afford to pay a little more. But that clearly doesn’t explain why Joe the Plumber and other Americans like him, who presumably aren’t as rich as Warren Buffett, should be punished with higher taxes.
Obama’s unique brand of class warfare rhetoric demonstrates his detachment from the real and assorted aspects of our nation’s economy. From Obama’s point of view, you are either middle class or you are a billionaire. The Joe Plumbers that fall somewhere in the middle are simply out of sight. So it is no wonder that Obama does not understand where somone like Mr. Wurzelbacher is coming from, or why he complains of higher taxes. When the best reference you have for someone making over $250,000 is Warren Buffett, then Joe the Plumber will certainly be viewed as an oddity. But for someone like John McCain, who doesn’t have a simplistic rich vs. poor menatlity of the economy, Joe Plumber’s concerns are real.
Obama attempted to portray McCain as being against equal pay for women, citing McCain’s opposition to the 2007 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was written in response to the Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Obama, however, needs to follow his own principles. Columnist Deroy Murdock found that Obama pays women working in his senate office “just 83 cents for every dollar his men make.” Meanwhile, “women in John McCain’s office make $1.04 for every dollar a man makes. A typical female staffer could earn 21 cents more per dollar paid to her male counterpart — while adding $10,726 to her annual income — by leaving Barack Obama’s office and going to work for John McCain.” Just another example of Obama talking the talk, but not walking the walk.
On abortion, Obama was just as scattered and evasive on the topic as he was at the Saddleback Forum. It’s amazing how certain he is of a supposed constitutional right to abortion, but when it comes to the fundamental, inalieanable right to life, it is “above his pay grade.” Thankfully, Sen. McCain did not apologize for protecting the unborn. He ended his response to the abortion question with a simple yet powerful statement: “We’ll help take care of them.” It is that type of care and compassion that is too often subsituted by the cold rhetoric of “choice.”
In the end, McCain reminded America that selecting the next president was a matter of trust. It was the Straight Talk Express versus the All Talk No Walk Air, with nonstop service to Washington, departing from the living room of William Ayers. Hopefully America will get on board with the right candidate.
The post-debate commentary from many of the mainstream media pundits was severely disappointing, including on Fox News. They were more impressed by how Obama looked and acted and less concerned with the substantive points made by McCain. It was as if they were watching a completely different debate. Grinning smugly each time your far-left leaning positions on abortion, taxes, and trade are unmasked isn’t that impressive. It’s actually quite a turn off. Obama was forced by McCain to explain himself on a number of issues, including his ties to vote-fraud machine ACORM, and his explanations mostly fell flat. Obama would retreat behind that guileful smirk, a defense mechanism utilized each time his agenda was shaply picked apart by the Maverick.
Pundits were dissastified by the lack of “knockout punches” from McCain, but that doesn’t mean the Arizona senator didn’t deliver any decisive blows. If McCain is as agressive and focused on the campaign trail as he was in last night’s debate, Joe Plumbers from all across the country will get the message and help deliver the knockout punch to the Obama campaign. They certainly don’t need the media elite to tell them who won the third round.
