jeudi 16 octobre 2008
The Final Encounter
It would appear that the gloves have finally come off, at least on the Republican side. The final presidential debate 2008 saw Senator McCain winning the best line of the evening with, '..Senator Obama I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago'. Somehow it doesn't have the intensity or sting of former presidential one liners and is this simply too little, too late? Whilst McCain got emotional and tried to throw various political punches, Obama stayed, cool, calm and collected. GMT, CET and other time zones meant that watching the final debate was not going to be at a convenient time for anyone living in Europe. For those who missed it, the Daily Telegraph has a good, all round take on the previous night's event whilst the New York Times runs an excellent interactive feature for those wish to watch the debate, or read its transcript. If you prefer your digest in French, the Figaro offers its own analysis. McCain's camp would seem to be hoping for a strategy of hearts ruling minds in order to catch up in the polls, they won't have long to wait. November 4th is fast approaching.
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2 commentaires:
When I saw the video of Sen. McCain saying the now famous catchphrase, I thought straight away about the French debate in 1988 between President Mitterand and his not-so-wanted Prime Minister Jacques Chirac. Mitterand knew he had won the debate when Chirac tried to talk to him as a candidate and not as a President and he replied 'You're totally right Mister Prime Minister' (Mais vous avez tout à fait raison Monsieur le Premier Ministre).
It seems obvious that what happened in 88 in France in not likely to happen now because of a lot of different factors : first the country (the USA do not react as France), second Mc Cain has a lot of problems to deal with : the 'inheritance' of the Bush years (even if he tried to create a distance between him and the current government), then the 'Palin case'...
Anyway, the campaign is almost over and Mc Cain has finally decided to be distant from the Bush administration. I'm pretty sure that if he had done it months before, he would not have had such troubles in opinion polls.
I would just like to share with you 2 videos I've heard of.
The two main candidates are at the Alfred E. Smith Charity Dinner. And both of them spoke. But it has nothing to do with the campaign atmosphere. Here, the candidates are joking and are making fun of themselves as well as their rival.
It is sometimes really hilarious, especially when there are clear references to the campaign.
And, honestly, it is really weird for me, as a French guy to imagine the French candidate doing the same thing, forgetting the campaign for 1 night and make jokes like that.
Here are the link of the two vids :
McCain speech : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AsLsnGYpQg&feature=related
Obama speech : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWQ9B2mRplQ
excellent videos, it's nice to see politicians showing their human side even it sometimes it's shortlived.
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