For the first time

posted by The Vidiot @ 7:36 AM Permalink

Mr. Vidiot and I went to watch the debate in a group setting, with the hope that it would make the debate at least SEEM more interesting.

It didn't.

As expected, the debate was annoying. McCain was obviously listening to his handlers' advice, "look him in the eye" and "throw Ayers in his face at some point" and he did seem to at least put Obama on the defensive, more than he had in previous debates. (Though, they forgot to tell him to not sneer.) Obama did his usual thing of just looking cool and calm, which I suppose is in an effort to contrast just how crazy McCain seems.

But the folks in the bar added nothing to the scene. Everyone was an Obama supporter. If there were any McCain folks, they were laying low. (To be fair, this is NYC and there are very few republicans here... or at least, the republicans that live here are too rich to be in a dive bar in the East Village.) So, the standard hoots and hollers came at expected times. No yelling matches. No fisticuffs. Booooring. A few folks were playing a drinking game, but they started that about half way through the debate and the word they chose was "Joe." I'm sure they were quite toasted by the end of the debate. "Joe the plumber" was mentioned a lot.

As usual, the debate didn't surprise, inform or shock. That's a shame. I kept hoping McCain would just get all rabid and start to gnaw on Obama's pant leg or something. And now, we only have a few more weeks until this national nightmare is over. Between the Bush presidency and the longest election season everrrrrrr, I'm exhausted and would LOVE to get back to discussing foreign policy.

As an aside, (and this is a total aside and wholly irrelevant), my mom watched the Zeitgeist movie I recommended in a previous post. She watched it on her new Mac that I spent, oh, I dunno, 15 years trying to talk her into switching over to because she was constantly having problems with and was confused by her PC. Well, first, she called me the morning after I set it up for her, in near tears she was so ecstatic with the machine, and she was going on about how easy it is to use and how it thinks like her and, like, "ohmygawd!"

"Yes, mom. I know."

"You were such a bitch about it," she said, "but I'm glad you finally talked me into it."

"Yes, mom. I know."

So THEN, she called me that afternoon, totally flummoxed. She had been watching the Zeitgeist movie which explains why our economic system is archaic and should be done away with, and she said, "How much can I shed in one day? Yesterday, my world was Microsoft, and now it's Mac. Yesterday, I didn't even think about money. Today, I know it's meaningless. Thanks a lot," she said with only a hint of snark.

Labels: 2008 election, debates