Tonight's Debate was Decisive

There were several moments tonight. One of McCain's strongest moments was when he said "If you wanted to run against George Bush, you should have run four years ago." There were also moments where Senator Obama evaded the issue or mis-represented his position. Even with that I believe that Senator McCain demonstrated that he should not be president. Obama seemed to underplay his relationship with Ayers and ACORN. The record is clear. Even with those problems for Obama, which I believe are significant, I was troubled by McCain's performance.

In many cases McCain's responses to questions or redirect were inadequate or filled with glib generalities. In a couple of places the Senator was unable to follow up on an issue where he clearly had the advantage. On the issue of the Colombian Trade Pact, Senator Obama misrepresented the position he supported in the Senate. The choice on the issue is a simple one. Voting for the pact would allow US goods to be sold into the Colombian market without tariff. Under the Andean pact, which is current law, Colombian products already enter the US markets without tariffs. McCain stumbled through his response to Obama's nonsensical answer. Would labor leaders in Colombia be better off with a trade pact or without one? Obviously,they would be better off with the pact than without it. But McCain was unable to respond. That did not happen once but several times.

I am still not ready to vote for Senator Obama but the choice I have rejected is Senator McCain.