McCain Wins Third Debate in a TKO

I know my opinion is not in-line with all the pundits in the partisan press, it is clear to me that Sen John McCain clearly won the third and final U.S. presidential debate.

(A quick review of the Internet sites of some major media outlets will tacitly confirm McCain's victory. Look at the MSNBC, CNN, NY Times, Boston Globe web sites; stories of the debate are buried, if present at all. )

Throughout the night, McCain had Obama on the defensive, criticizing Obama for his desire towards "spreading the wealth" among the people, taking more tax dollars from the successful and giving it to the less-so.

Joe was trying to realize the American dream, McCain challenged, referencing a gentleman who spoke with Obama a few days ago. We're going to take Joe's money, give it to Senator Obama and let him spread the wealth around.

McCain followed with a quip reminding us that the Obama and Democrats have a low threshold for defining someone as rich. Congratulations, Joe, you are rich. He probably didn't even know that.

Obama criticized McCain for suggesting an across-the-board spending freeze, a move put in place in New York City (and in households across the nation), preferring to take a scalpel to the budget.

However, when pressed on what programs he will cut, after 20 months on the campaign trail, Obama STILL cannot name a single item that he will cut. He continues to throw the suggestion that he will go line-by-line through the budget to cut programs that don't work, with no hint of what those might be.

McCain followed with a reminder about Obama's proposed $830 billion in new spending plans.

When told that the U.S. has the highest per-student cost for public education, Obama responded by stating that we need more money in education, standing steadfastly against any voucher program, despite McCain's claims that the voucher program in the Washington D.C. school system is popular and successful.

Obama's strongest point came when defending his healthcare plan, emphasizing that people will save more money on his plan than on McCain's. He is offering folks with no health insurance to sign up for the plan Congress has; he thinks that people should have the same healthcare as the legislators. Except, regular folks won't get it for free.

When asked directly by McCain how much Obama would fine people who don't subscribe to his health insurance plan, Obama will still not tell us. Likely, because he doesn't want us to know!

While McCain did not sufficiently highlight Obama's associations with the domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and the vote-fraud campaign of the group ACORN, McCain did remind us all that Obama gave $832,000 from his campaign coffers to ACRON that has gone to fund the group's "get-out-the-vote" campaign -- an effort that has resulted in massive voter registration fraud. Obama never apologized or expressed regret for that donation (not to mention that he lied on his campaign finance reports about the donation), nor did he condemn their tactics.

However, Obama faltered on the topic of Supreme Court judges. When asked, McCain emphatically announced that he would have no "litmus test" for judicial nominees regarding the Roe v Wade abortion "rights" case, despite his feeling that the ruling should be overturned.

Obama, who supports pretty much every form of abortion -- including abortions paid for by the tax-payers, dodged the question, never answering the question. A clear indication that he would have a precondition for his judicial nominees.

And finally, finally (!!), McCain told Obama and all the Democrats that he is not, in fact, George Bush:
Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.

Throughout the night, as he has throughout his campaign, Obama continues to avoid discussing the details of his plans for the country, preferring instead to throw out the now-tired canard that we can't have the same failed policies and the same failed politics of the past eight years.

About the only thing certain that Obama will do is raise taxes. He told us last night that he doesn't "mind paying a little more (taxes)." I don't know about you, but I would rather spend my earnings on my family, not on Washington D.C.

McCain answered my concerns by demanding: "Nobody likes taxes. Let's not raise anybody's taxes."

Amen, Senator.