Live blog — from Nashville, a grand ol’ debate!
Things should be getting under way at Nashville’s Belmont University in just a few minutes.
For those joining our debate live blog for the first time, everyone is invited — indeed, encouraged — to contribute thoughts by adding their comments to this post.
Pre-debate spin is focusing on “John McCain’s last stand.” The consensus of polls is that Barack Obama is widening his lead, anywhere from 6 to 8 points. McCain needs something tonight to stop the bleeding.
Two trivia questions to get things started:
1. What highly-ranked NCAA Division I basketball team lost to tiny Belmont in December 2003?
2. Name the 1975 movie in which a fictional presidential candidate named Hal Philip Walker played a key role, though he was never on screen. Who directed the movie?
Kevin Horrigan is deputy editor of the editorial page. He writes editorials on local, state and national politics and public policy and also contributes a signed column to the Sunday Commentary Page. "The Old Sport" is a former sports columnist for the Post-Dispatch and for 10 years hosted radio talk shows on KMOX and KTRS in St. Louis. He lives in South St. Louis with his wife, Kate, and a dream of one day starting a professional catfish noodling tour. 
Eddie,
Obama is correct to assert that the McCain plan calls for taxing health benefits. The revenue would presumably be used to partially offset those $5,000 tax credits.
Obama says loose laws in Deleware on credit cards! Don’t tell Joe Biden. No wonder Biden of Deleware talks about Scranton all the time. Maybe better consumer protections there.
mcCain has opened up the issue of judgment about supporting the Iraq war.
Eddie… I got help on the first question from a high school coach here. He seemed pretty sure about it.
Here’s the report that calls into question how McCain would pay for the tax credits.
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/10/06/mccain-i-m-not-raising-taxes-i-m-cutting-medicare.aspx
McCain was extremely strong on foreign policy, but not entirely right. he’s wrong about the recent russia/georgia conflict and he’s wrong about iraq.
Obama hits hard off the bat on foreign policy. he said mccain’s judgment was wrong on iraq from the beginning, the point he needs to make.
$79 billion surplus in Iraq is not a factual statistic, but yet Obama keeps saying it every week.
Obama’s right: we have no moral capital left at this point.
The war on terror is, was, and always has been bigger than Al-quada and Afghanistan. I thought that was pretty clear from the outset.
And the $10B a month in Iraq, does that include soldiers salaries we would have to pay anyway?
Why dont they ask what happens if Iraq fails? Not that it appears to be much of a chance now, thanks to the surge that someone said would have the reverse effect.
I think you and the coach are right on the first quiz item, EJ. I’m not so sure about your second answer. Kevin’s ruling is final. No employees of the Post-Dispatch or their families may participate.