McCain: "Yes, I Can!"
By Asma Hasan
Colorado, US
Watching the second presidential debate, I was finally struck by the major difference between the two candidates. Obama is a "we" man, while McCain is an "I" man. Where Obama says, we will have to sacrifice, we will have to do this, or we will have to do that, McCain says over and over, I can do this, I can do that, I'll catch Bin Laden, I will cut excess spending out of the budget. McCain's been trained in the school of, if you don't do it yourself, someone else might screw it up, whereas Obama has at least been trained in the rhetoric of a collective approach, where everyone must work together and do his or her part to improve things.
Which do I prefer? To be honest, I've heard Obama say these exact same things many times. I keep waiting for the earth to move when he speaks, but, so far, no movement. I felt like a lot of his comments were the usual Democratic dither last night. He didn't say anything wrong — I just didn't feel the magic. And I'm scared of what he'll do to Pakistan. It's clear he feels that the country hasn't done much right, yet they are basically in a civil war partially because of a US. war. In fact, the Obama doctrine sounded a lot like the Bush doctrine to me. Obama has advocated for preemptive-esque action in Pakistan and limiting UN influence on acting against Iran.
Maybe because I hadn't heard it before, or because I don't get Obama's "we" talk completely, but McCain's can-do attitude and optimism were not lost on me. I liked that McCain said we didn't have to choose between energy independence, health care reform, and entitlement reform but that we could work on all three at the same time. It doesn't look like it'll help him much, but in my opinion, McCain won the debate.
Who do you think won?
