the great "debate"

Sarah and I had a chance to sit down and watch Rick Warren's interview with the candidates Saturday night. We caught all but the first few minutes of Obama's interview. Overall, I must say I was a little disappointed at the overall event.

First of all, I will say that Warren had some very creative questions. I liked several of them like "who are three people you will turn to for advice" (or something like that). I was also excited to hear him bring exposure to adoption and a few other issues. However, because of the "friendly" format, I don't think Warren followed up on some very key opportunities. For example, on the abortion issue, Obama skirted the question of when a baby has human rights. In all fairness, he certainly was on hostile grounds when it comes to that question, and because he represents the Democratic party, he has to walk a very fine line. However, his answer was a little wimpy. Had the format not been so "civil," I think Warren could have really dug into the key issue that keeps so many evangelicals from voting for him.

Another disappointment was Warren's gleeful acceptance of McCain's one word answers! He simply accepted McCain's answer that human rights begin at conception (with which I agree), but he did not ask what McCain's plan was to lower the abortion rate or make abortion illegal. I'm glad he'spro-life, but what is he planning to do about it?

I was also disappointed by McCain's answer about how his faith affects his every day life. Of course, I am not trying to down his military service or the time he spent as a POW. In fact, I was duly impressed by hearing his stories about living in captivity and gained much respect for him. However, he didn't really say anything about faith today. He quickly jumped back (as he did many times in the interview) to stories of life as a POW.

I was also quite surprised to hear that Obama and McCain both gave practically the same answer to the gay marriage questions. They both believe that marriage is for a man and woman, but that they would be ok with civil unions (McCain said something like legal agreements) to provide basic rights. The only difference is that McCain said he might consider a federal law banning it only if the federal government took the power to choose away from the states (which will probably never happen). I'm really interested to hear how the Religious Right is handling that one.

Overall, it seemed that many of the questions were written directly for McCain to be able to answer bluntly so the crowd could cheer. I'm also a little disappointed that Warren assured us that McCain had been in a "cone of silence" when all along, he had been at his hotel when the event started and didn't make it to the church until halfway through Obama's interview. I'm not conspiring that he cheated, but I doubt that Warren was clueless to the fact that McCain wasn't locked away in silence when he announced he had been in the "cone of silence" the entire time.

I found myself really having a hard time listening to McCain's gruff style. Style is about 99th out of 100 on the list of issues that matter to me, but I just find him quite awkward. I'm sure he's a brilliant man, but he comes across so robotic. I'm also unimpressed by the Maverick persona he's trying to sell. To me, we've had a maverick in the White House for 8 years. I think I'm ready for something different. McCain seems to be content bringing up the war, offshore drilling and national security (which is important), but he seems to avoid what seems to matter most to Americans, the economy.

Anyway, it was nice to hear the candidates without the arguing. However, there is no doubt that they are both career politicians seizing every opportunity to hop on the stump and give a passionate plea! These next few weeks should be interesting as we head into the National Conventions and the VPs are announced. Thanks for reading, I know it was a little random. It's been a while since I posted about politics, mostly because I went back to work on Monday. A new school year is upon us!