Watching the debate, feeling low

I'm a little disappointed - at one point I had such high hopes for an Obama-McCain election, but this debate is leaving me rather underwhelmed with both of them. And in terms of presentation, I think McCain might be winning.

So far, the economic conversation left me a little disgusted with the whole thing; the Iraq discussion was much more interesting to me in its details. I couldn't believe that McCain pulled out some story about people who voluntarily re-enlisted in Baghdad and honoring their commitment ... while completely ignoring the number of people who had to be stop-lossed and otherwise asked to serve multiple tours of duty in this war to make his surge "successful". Also, this quote, regarding military action in Pakistan: "You don't say that out loud. If you've got to do things, you gotta do things." Which sounded a lot to me like, "Of course I'll consider this option; but I'll never admit to considering it." Nice.

I stopped listening for a while to play with an incredible adorable baby. :-) When I tuned back in, they were talking about the Russia/Georgia conflict. I've sort of been in and out since then. I find it interesting how each of them uses a particular question to turn back to whatever list of talking points they have to get out - even if it doesn't really answer the question at hand. It is frustrating for me; it seems like their more concerned with staying "on message" than with sincerely responding to the things people want to know about.

Now that it's over, I have to say again that I was underwhelmed, and not at all convinced that either of these candidates brings meaningful change. Both are pretty conservative, as far as saying anything that would significantly deviate from the way politics and government has been working to date. And I think that especially hurts Obama, not only because his whole platform is this idea of real change, but also because I think he'd be far more animated and engaged if he was putting forth much bolder proposals for the kind of country we could be and how we would go about it. The vision he enchanted all of us with suggested something bold and inspiring, but his policies are neither. Maybe the thinking is that too much change is too hard to sell politically, and that it's better to go with something familiar but slightly tweaked in a better direction. But I think he'd be far more galvanizing and more passionate if he were, quite frankly, more radical.

I suppose I'll still vote for him in the end, because he's not the worse choice. And he's not a bad choice; I think he'll try and do decent things. But I'd originally gotten fired up about him because I thought we really might usher in a visionary new way of thinking about our nation, its actions and its governance. Instead, sadly, I think we're going to be seeing a lot of business as usual, with a slightly left leaning versus a right leaning. I'd hoped we could do better than that this time around.