Saddleback Civil Forum Reactions

So I had it Tivoed and just had a chance to watch it now. Full transcripts are available here. Quick reactions: Both candidates did as well as you could expect but the forum, and the audience and the questions asked all favored Obama by a large margin. But even with that handicap McCain rose above and delivered a very solid performance.


Obama was his usual self, quick thinking, nimble, and definitely not easily trapped by what were a veritable minefield of questions. The conventional wisdom seems to be that McCain got the better of Obama, and he did, but let's not forget what Hillary would have looked like in this forum: dreadful. Only Obama, among all Democrats, could have pulled this off as well as he did, and most Democrats should watch this and simply be reassured that they picked the best candidate for battles like this.


Obama was peppered with questions about abortion, stem cells, his faith in God, faith-based initiatives, all of which he answered with, if not clarity, but definitely a sense of authenticity. The audience seemed to appreciate, and want to appreciate what Obama was trying to do, which was reach out to them.But the loaded and tripwire questions for Obama, were softballs for McCain, and almost all of which he hit out of the park. Even a question likely designed to be "tough": Name a time you've gone against party loyalty, seemed tailor made for McCain, although Obama did as well as possible.


But what I came away with, were the stories. McCain simply had better stories, and more of them, from the question on adoption leading to the story of his adopted daughter from Bangladesh, to the story of the Christian guard in Vietnam, McCain seemed to have an endless supply of appropriate and fascinating anecdotes. To the point I think we should nickname him Higgins.


He also espoused all the "right" positions on issues that conservatives and evangelicals usually care about, although it was a bit jarring to hear him say he didn't want to tax rich people, when in 2000 he was calling the Bush tax cuts "for the rich" unnecessary and unfair. So he's still moving to the right, even after securing the nomination.


Longtime readers of the Political Machine know that I don't care for McCain one single bit, and my ideal election result would be one where they both lose, and I think he is likely pandering, but my bottom-line analysis here is that he did much better than expected, and likely went a long way toward securing the support he needs from the Republican base.