Deanna Hoak

For my money, Obama clearly won on the economic front: McCain was talking about cutting back on pork (which we already know to him means such “foolishness” as planetariums) to save (comparatively) small amounts, while Obama intends to gain much larger amounts of money through closing loopholes and raising taxes on the richest and the corporations, and then he wants to use the money for such things as reducing our dependence on foreign oil (which he gave as his first priority). Since we’ve already seen that “trickle-down” economics don’t work, Obama’s plan sounds far better for us in the long run.

The sorry state of our health care in this nation is of huge concern to me, and Obama came off as more sincerely concerned with making sure that everyone is provided with health care. McCain’s plan of making sure everyone has the money to buy health care on their own sounded unworkable to me, and something likely to fall by the wayside.

McCain made a very impassioned speech toward the end about how he supports and loves the wounded, and I’m sure it scored him big points with his base; it was a nice emotional touch that may even have gained him a few votes–it brought out that image of him as a war hero that many are fond of. Obama came across as being more likely to save future soldiers from having to go through that in the first place, though.

In general, the candidates are so different that I’m skeptical there are truly many undecideds; most voters have known for a while whom they prefer, and I very much doubt that the debate changed many minds at all. Most people probably think their favorite candidate won. Plenty of folks are more concerned with their pocketbooks than anything else right now, though, and I think that Obama’s plan of putting more tax burden on the big guys may take hold with a public who is disgusted at the bailout.