McCain is in trouble – The Presidential debate moderated by Tom Brokaw

As of this writing, I am watching my investment portfolio dissipate into thin air. Pope Benedict XVI the other day said that money is ephemeral, the economy is built on sand, and only the word of God will stand forever. He is right.

October 7^th 1984, exactly 23 years ago from yesterday's debate. President Ronald Reagan faced off with Walter Mondale in their first debate. Mondale believed the road to reducing the deficit was raising taxes, President Ronald Reagan believed the way to reduce the deficit was lower taxes. He spelled out exactly how he was going to do it, and he was able to sell his plan to the American people. Reagan came from 16 points behind to a landslide victory. Last night, McCain didn't come close to Reagan's performance. There was no cohesive argument that Americans could understand. There was no passion. Where was the passion McCain has so often used on the Senate floor? The headline in the Drudge report is, "Boring!" In American Idol, Simon Cowell calls it "the wow factor." If a singer sings okay, but nothing spectacular, Simon Cowell says, "There was no wow factor." In last night's debate, I am afraid, "There was no wow factor."

The first twenty minutes should set the tone for the debate. McCain should have begun naming names right at the onset of people responsible for this financial debacle. He did not. Instead, he comes up with another 300 billion dollar bailout package for homeowners to stabilize the housing market. I wanted to get up from my seat and choke him. The majority of Americans were against the 700 billion dollar bailout, so why did McCain think that another 300 billion dollar bailout was going to get him any votes. What about his spending freeze? I heard a Democratic pundit call it a "Hail Mary Pass." Unfortunately, I would have to agree with her. That was the most ridiculous populous rhetoric I heard from McCain in the entire debate.

McCain finally talked about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

>But you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis. But you know, they're the ones that, with the encouragement of Senator Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back. And you know, there were some of us that stood up two years ago and said we've got to enact legislation to fix this. We've got to stop this greed and excess. Meanwhile, the Democrats in the Senate and some -- and some members of Congress defended what Fannie and Freddie were doing. They resisted any change.

That was a good start, but he left it there. He never mentioned it again, and didn't name names. How can he not name the people responsible and hold them accountable? Poll after poll shows that Americans want accountability. Why did he not name Frank Raines, the ex-CEO of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and a current advisor of Obama, Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, and Democrat Barney Frank? Why did he then not tie these together to the Democratic congress that has a lower approval rating than President Bush? A president Obama and a Democratic congress are tantamount to a blank check, and Obama will use it. I wanted to put some dynamite in McCain's rear-end to get him fired up.

McCain did begin to talk about taxes, and he made some salient points. At one point McCain said, "the last president to raise taxes during tough economic times was Herbert Hoover, and he practiced protectionism as well, which I'm sure we'll get to at some point." I was waiting for McCain to explain his statement. He did not. If 50% of Americans according to polls do not know who is in charge of congress, how many does he think know who President Herbert Hoover was? Herbert Hoover was the president at the beginning of the depression, and his increase in taxes, and his protectionist policies such as the Smoot-Hawley act made the depression much deeper and made it last longer, but McCain failed to explain this.

Tom Brokaw asks who will be the next treasury of the state and McCain comes out with Warren Buffet. Warren Buffet is one of the greatest financial geniuses of our century but he is a big liberal. Couldn't McCain come up with a conservative? And why wouldn't have the candidates have thought of this before since the treasury secretary is now the most powerful person in the United States Government? Of course, Obama is going to come back and say, "Yeah, Warren Buffet sounds good."

McCain then elaborated on Obama's tax policies,

"Small businesses across America will have to cut jobs and will have their taxes increase and won't be able to hire because of Sen. Obama's tax policies. You know, he said some time ago, he said he would forgo his tax increases if the economy was bad. I've got some news, Sen. Obama, the news is bad. So let's not raise anybody's taxes, my friends, and make it be very clear to you I am not in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy. I am in favor of leaving the tax rates alone and reducing the tax burden on middle-income Americans by doubling your tax exemption for every child from $3,500 to $7,000. "

McCain also made the point of Obama's spending over 800 billion dollars in new spending, but he did not effectively tie the two together. He was off to a good start but again it was not enough. He also knew Obama would come back with his usual talking points when Obama said,

>"I want to provide a tax cut for 95 percent of Americans, 95 percent. If you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year, you will not see a single dime of your taxes go up. If you make $200,000 a year or less, your taxes will go down. Now, Senator McCain talks about small businesses. Only a few percent of small businesses make more than $250,000 a year. So the vast majority of small businesses would get a tax cut under my plan. "

McCain left this statement unchallenged. There is no way with Obama's spending plan that he can only tax his so-called rich. In one of Obama's crackpot ideas he wants to spend 25 billion dollars a year to send to foreign countries to cut down on poverty. Guess where that money will end up? – In the hands of terrorists and warlords. He wants to enact a windfall profit tax, the same type of tax that proved an abysmal failure during the Carter years. A windfall profit tax is no different than the excess profit taxes tried before World War 2 that ended up hurting the economy. He wants to expand the earned income credit which is welfare. He says his taxes won't affect small businesses but there are currently 21.6 million sole proprietorships under the individual tax system. Obama's taxes include these taxpayers too. These rates would change from 33% to 39.6%. And what about stifling economic growth with an increase in the tax rate of capital gains and dividends? Obama's tax plan is the same-old redistribution of wealth that has always hurt economies. That is the only way 95% of Americans can get a tax break. This is the opposite of supply-side economics.

McCain talks about earmarks, but it's beginning to lack credulity. His 700 billion dollar bailout was laden with earmarks.

Why did McCain not mention the far-left organization ACORN and Obama's involvement in it which is well-documented? Acorn has been involved in a number of voter fraud cases and just today, the FBI raided the Las Vegas offices of ACORN for more voter fraud including the falsifying of forms with fake names, addresses, etc. This is a commonality of ACORN.

Governor Palin had referenced that Obama was palling around with terrorists such as Bill Ayers, former terrorist of The Weather Underground. This was in reference to newly released documents last Thursday According to these documents, Bill Ayers wanted to radicalize students "in his words" and he hired Barack Obama as chairman of the "Chicago Annenberg Challenge" who was responsible for distributing the 50 million dollars raised by Ayers to various schools. This would have left more doubt in the mind of voters. Why did McCain not mention this?

Or, what about Obama's cozy relationship with convicted felon Tony Rezko from whom Obama bought a house under suspicious circumstances that even Hillary Clinton mentioned in her debates?

We have one relationship after another from Obama's past of characters of unsavory and dubious quality yet McCain does not mention one of them. One relationship wouldn't mean much, but it is the pattern of these relationships throughout his life that we have to wonder on who Obama really is.

McCain should have refined his energy plan a lot sooner. This is the first time I heard McCain say that he would reprocess nuclear waste like France and other countries. Before it was all about where do we put the waste? France reprocesses 95% of their waste, and the remainder is almost nothing. It is only recently Obama has been for nuclear energy. McCain lost this as an issue.

Obama's plan even sounded better on health care. It's going to cost an arm and a leg, but it sounded better than what McCain was proposing. But again, Obama wants healthcare for 45 million uninsured individuals. That number has always included 14 million illegal aliens. What kind of burden will that put on the government? We don't have money for any of these spending programs.

As we watch our economy crumble, who does not think Al-Queda and other terrorist organizations are looking on this as an opportunity?

There will be one more debate, but who will be watching?

This is not about who will be the best president of the United States, because both of these candidates are dolts. The question comes down to who will do the least damage to our country?

"Dime con quien andas, y te diré quien eres" Show me your friends, and I will tell you who you are." is a favorite saying in Spanish and a warning to America. In last night's debate McCain was unable or unwilling to make the sale. Therefore, I predict that Barack Obama will be our next president, but be warned. Barack Obama will take us to places we have never been before, and these are places that are not good. Barack Obama is a product of far-left George Soros and Moveon.org and he comes from the corrupt Chicago political machine, and anyone who has looked at his relationships understands what I am talking about. Last night's debate was a turning point in our country. We have now begun the metamorphous transformation from what America used to be to a socialist style of Europe. Its Ironic that Europe is electing leaders by the droves that are right of center because their socialistic policies are killing them; France - Nicolas Sarkozy, Germany – Angela Markel, Italy – George Napolitano and Sweden – Fredrik Reinfeldt. This country will now be run by Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Like Britain, our greatness will be greatly diminished by socialistic and protectionist policies. Barack Obama will turn this country into just another member of the European Union. I hope we will be able to recover.