Episode 40: Thank Zeus it’s Almost Over!

For our reality series Make Me the President, we scoured the country to find the most power-hungry, Machiavellian and downright unattractive people in the United States of America (“The Greatest Nation On Earth” ™) to find the man, or woman, who could raise the most money, be willing to break the most promises and offer the most bland reason to become — The President.

This week on MMTP:

The economy continued to tank even after Congress finally approved the $700 billion financial bailout supported by both of our remaining contestants. The current circumstances have led to a big jump in the polls in favor of Sen. Barack “Maybe I am Blessed?” Obama, which is interesting because his position on the situation really hasn’t been very different from Sen. John “Running Out of Options” McCain’s. “If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose,” was how a top McCain aide put it — it’s no wonder McCain has been so desperate to change the message.

Their solution was to send Gov. Sarah “Cornered But Adorable” Palin out to wink at the fans while spouting nonsense about Obama “palling around with terrorists.” Although it is perfectly legitimate to question Obama’s judgment regarding his professional relationship with William Ayers of the Weather Underground, it is hardly fair to portray it as if they were bowling buddies. Also, the plural “terrorists” is particularly misleading — who else fits that description that Obama is allegedly hanging out with, hmmm?

This attack could have gone very badly for Obama if not for Sen. Hillary “Remember Me?” Clinton outing the Ayers connection during the primaries and inadvertently making sure it would now be old news. Maybe Sen. Joe Biden was right about Clinton being more qualified to be veep than he? Without even being in the game she seems more effective at warding off the lipstick-wearing pit bull than he has been.

And then, of course, there were the debates.

Last week, we looked at what a joke the idea of a debate party is, because there is no debate to be found at the parties. But, what is much worse is that there is no real debate to be found at the debates, either. These travesties of democracy are not debates at all; in fact, they are nothing more than the political equivalent of an exhibition bout in professional boxing, or worse, professional wrestling. OK, perhaps the exact questions are not known in advance, but the general questions are never a surprise, which allows for the demonstration of the No. 1 skill needed in a presidential debate — not answering the gosh darned questions.

And, it was this skill that Palin brazenly demonstrated last week during her match with Biden. “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear,” she said, “but I'm going to talk straight to the American people.”

Speak straight to the fans she did. Looking directly into the camera, she winked, she smiled and she reminded us of another truth regarding so-called debates — they are all about entertainment. There is an old adage that politics is just show business for ugly people. Well, MMTP producers couldn’t agree more, which is probably why Palin is such a breath of fresh air. And, the fact that she got Tina Fey back on SNL is definitely an added bonus.

The issues — who cares? Neither Palin nor Biden did any damage to their respective campaigns, making it a wash.

But, Tuesday night’s smack-down at the top of the ticket could have been a different story. With Tom Brokaw as the emcee and ring announcer, at least we should’ve had ourselves a show, right?

Well, not really, no.

The, ahem, “town hall-style” debate was supposed to favor McCain, who did actually step up his game and show that he is more suited to a slightly less formal setting. Then during the first (inevitably about the economy) question, McCain revealed an idea that should have knocked Obama clean out. “I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America,” said McCain, “and renegotiate at the new value of those homes — at the diminished value of those homes — and let people be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.” So, what McCain seems to be saying is that someone losing their home doesn’t have to be burdened with the loss of, for instance, 50 percent of their equity, but can just get a new mortgage for the current depreciated value and keep the property? If that were the case, then it would be the kind of Main Street bailout plan that regular folks could get behind, rather than the corporate welfare being offered to Wall Street. So why couldn’t he vocalize it properly, why couldn’t he sell it? This was definitely a missed opportunity on McCain’s part to deliver something new on a real issue.

Like last time at the University of Mississippi, McCain started to repeat lines from both his stump speech and earlier debates. However, on this occasion he really outdid himself by using the same line about, “reaching across the aisle” to Joe Lieberman and Russ Feingold twice in five minutes — talk about a senior moment. And, let’s not even go there with regard to reaching out to the traitor Lieberman.

We also saw a tougher, more aggressive Obama this time. And, he really gave no ground when McCain tried to use some of the tactics of their first debate such as suggesting that Obama “does not understand our national security challenges.” To which Obama responded, “It's true. There are some things I don't understand … I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.”

Another successful counter punch came when McCain attempted to belittle the junior senator by suggesting that he was naive to telegraph an attack on Pakistan. Obama had suggested going to get Osama bin Laden if the Pakistanis where unwilling or unable to do so. McCain quoted former MMTP Champ Teddy Roosevelt’s famous line, “Talk softly, but carry a big stick.” Obama replied, “This is the guy who sang, ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,’ who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That, I don't think, is an example of ‘speaking softly.’”

The punches kept landing and at the end this was Obama’s debate. Those punches landed hard and he didn’t allow McCain any ground. McCain should have rocked this match; he had the experience, he had the material but he just couldn’t close the deal. At this stage, he really has no one to blame but himself.

Tune in next week to see if McCain can figure out a way to not travel stowaway on his next trip aboard Air Force One.  

Hail to the Chief!

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