The Unfortunate Political Situation In Which We Find Ourselves

Phew, I almost ended my title with a preposition.

Contrary to some people's opinion there are thoughtful and principled people in our country. Everyone who has commented on this site is in this camp, let's call us the "intellectual ideologues" (iis). However, there is also a group of people out there that are blown about with every gust of wind in the political landscape. This group, who I will call the "unthoughtful undecideds" (uus), are won or lost based on the rhetoric, and general "feeling" that they get from the different candidates. Because this group (which is between 10 and 20% [at least] of voters) always decides who the President will be, we see the type of smears, fear tactics, and general disrespectfulness that the candidates display toward each other. They aren't doing all of this to win the iis but to win the shallow uus. The iis understand the principles, experience and issues on which the candidates stand, and make their decisions based on those factors. The uus "go with their gut" and are persuaded by the lies and rhetoric of political ads and sound bites.

Unfortunately politicians find themselves in a position where they have to play these people's game because they decide who will have power and who will not. Until we have some kind of voter requirements (like a competency exam) I suppose we will have to allow the least informed, and least intelligent among us to decide who will be the President and wade through the rhetoric and lies (of both sides). I'm sure this wouldn't be a very popular position and certainly wouldn't win friends and influence people, but if you are reading this don't be offended because I'm probably not talking about you.

My Thoughts on the Debate (Quickly)

BO won.
Not in a big way, but he did exactly what he needed to do. Which was show he was competent, be respectful to McCain, and demonstrate having a handle on the issues. He did an excellent job of all three of those things.
McCain accomplished a few things- he demonstrated his experience (and called into question Obama's experience), made a really good point about how Obama's tax plan will not work, and highlighted his conservatism on wasteful government spending and comparing records on that issue.

Obviously, even if Obama had completely wiped the floor with McCain, I would still not vote for Obama, but he demonstrated an excellent ability to allow smears to roll off his back and maintain civility during heavy criticism. He also clearly presented his positions, and defended against McCain, who seemed to get the last word almost every time.

If the McCain that showed up last night shows up at the next two debates, he will lose plain and simple.

I haven't listened to any commentary yet, I wanted to put my thoughts out there before becoming tainted with the spin that is out there.

What do you think?

Update: It has been pointed out that Obama consistently referred to McCain as "John" instead of "Senator McCain" which was disrespectful to some degree, but he probably got away with it in the public. My guess is that most people didn't pick up on that, but time will tell.