First, to Tom Brokaw's question:
"Instead of having a discussion, let me ask you as a coda to that. Would you give Congress a date certain to reform Social Security and Medicare within two years after you take office? Because in a bipartisan way, everyone agrees, that's a big ticking time bomb that will eat us up maybe even more than the mortgage crisis."
In my mind, this was far and away the worst question of the night. It was presumptuous and based on a false premise, and not even a town hall question. It's where I gave up on Brokaw; up until then I had been willing to give him a bit of slack with his pissy attitude about sticking to the allotted time and following the debate rules.
But the real problem on this question was that Obama bailed on the issue and used his time to cycle back about tax policy; that is, he got so caught up on correcting McCain's falsehoods on Obama's tax proposals - and mangled his response so badly anyway - that he failed to score points on McCain on a crucial issue, specifically social security privatization. Obama should have used the opportunity to point out that the purpose of social security is to provide a safety net that is, as the name says, secure, as in not at risk. Point out that John McCain's answer to "fixing" social security is to destroy it by forcing privatization and the investment of retirement funds in the stock market, and then point out the obvious consequence of McCain's privatization plan, the bloodbath that those "private accounts" would have taken for most Americans after these last couple of weeks. If we had adopted the Bush/McCain social security privatization plan, the retirement accounts of people approaching or in retirement would be effectively wiped out. This is where the rubber hits the road for working class Americans with respect to the current economic crisis. It would have been devastating to McCain.
Instead, Senator Obama let John McCain off the hook, and instead of having to try to defend his defenseless policy, McCain was able to babble about knowing how to solve the problem and (making the point that he is either really experienced or really old, or just incapable of coming up with an example less than 20 years old) getting Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill in a room together to work out the issues, without having to address any substance whatsoever, not in the least the substance of McCain's completely asinine policy of privatization of social security. To top it off, McCain's claim to a unique ability to work with both sides (actually, what he said was that he was capable of angering both sides - he brings consensus on the issue of believing McCain is a jerk!) belies the fact that he shows nothing but contempt and disrespect for his opponent. Work with your opponents? Being contrarian does not make you capable of working with people you disagree with, it just makes you capable of disagreeing with people that most other people don't expect you to disagree with.
Social security is a critical issue, particularly in Florida. Senator Obama needs to be making a big issue about this. McCain is not interested in "solving" the "problems" with social security, and his policies would destroy income security for retirees. Florida may be leaning toward Obama now, but Obama needs every vote he can muster here if he has a shot at winning the state. The Lieberman factor is still in play, and lots of Jewish votes are still going to go to McCain. The gay marriage amendment in Florida is going to mobilize the fundamentalist right in a way that I have to believe is being underestimated by the polling. Social security is an issue that can put Obama over the top, but Obama has to be willing to take this issue on.
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