Sen. McCain brought up a vote against partial-birth abortions by Sen. Obama. Interestingly enough, Sen. Obama commented that he was against partial-birth abortions, but voted present because the bill was badly written and there were already bills that took care of the problem.
Sen. McCain has just brought up a good point that the famous “exception for the health of the mother” is often used by the pro-abortion crowd to justify anything because they re-define the “health of the mother” to be anything that discomforts her physically, emotionally, or mentally. Sen. Obama did not have a good response to that one.
The questioning has gone on to education. Both of them are giving good and well thought out answers. So far neither of them has dropped into negative campaigning. Sen. Obama is supporting more money for the schools, while Sen. McCain is supporting charter schools and encouraging private schools. Sen. McCain is also for a strengthened student loan program and supporting parents rather than school systems. Sen. Obama is now supporting the Federal government stepping in to support the local school district on the things that a local school cannot do without appropriate support. Finally, there is a clear difference between the two that is being expressed in an appropriate debate format rather than in negative campaigning.
Sen. McCain is now making some great arguments about the current programs. He is arguing that the current programs do not necessarily need more direct money, but to be reformed rather than having more money. In fact, he even did a great gotcha on Sen. Obama, who had argued that we were already one of the most expensive school systems in the world. Sen. McCain promptly replied that if we are that expensive, then it is proof that more money is not needed but reform in the way in which we are using the money.
They just went into final statements. As Sen. McCain is starting, I can only wish that he had behaved during the first part of the debate as he has behaved during this final segment. If the Sen. McCain of the last 20 minutes had been present during the first 70 minutes, I think he would have won the debate handily. In fact, this is the first debate in which the analysts on CNN are equally divided. Three are giving the victory to Sen. McCain and three to Sen. Obama.
The closing statements are both safe and formulaic. No surprises there, and also no great excitement.
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