Body
On the evening of August 16, U.S. Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama participated in a forum discussion at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, moderated by the church’s founder, Rick Warren (author of “The Purpose Driven Life”). I watched the event live, steaming on the Web. It was somewhat controversial because it mixed politics and religion both in the venue and in the questions the candidates were asked. (Questions were mostly about political views and personal character, but Warren also inquired about the candidates’ faith as Christians.)
Incidentally, Warren didn’t ignore the fact that having a political forum in a church rose the hackles of some people. He asked Obama and McCain what they thought. To their credit, both candidates waved aside the controversy by saying that more conversations like this one need to happen, regardless of the venue, so Americans can make an informed choice at the polls in November.
“I want people to know me well,” Obama said. “I’m sure John McCain feels the same way.”
“I’d like to be in every venue in America,” McCain concurred.
Warren moderated by interviewing each candidate alone for one hour, asking each the same questions. Obama went first while McCain was kept separated in a room where he couldn’t hear Obama’s responses.
While the event wasn’t a debate, I approached it with a critical eye, observing how each candidate responded to the questions, and came away reflecting on who “won.” I was more impressed with Obama than McCain. He had quick, well-spoken answers for all the questions, and rarely hesitated or seemed to stall for time. It seemed a bit unfair to me that McCain had to follow such a great act; he seemed old, stogey, and set in his ways by comparison.
Obama came across as someone who has definite beliefs and a strong moral code, but is willing to consider different views. He’s too idealistic, though. He has lots of great ideas for how to make America, and the world, a better place. But it’s not so easy. One man can’t solve all our problems. One country can’t solve all the world’s problems.
Of course, Obama doesn’t pretend that solving the world’s problems will be easy. Previous generations, like those who were in charge during the Great Depression and World War II, had to make sacrifices, he said, and we should be able to make sacrifices too. He mixed hope and hard work together by saying, “If we pretend like everything is free, we are betraying the tradition of America.”
What makes Obama so compelling is not that he necessarily is more capable intellectually than McCain, but that he’s more charismatic. He makes a person feel hope, and perhaps hope is what America and the world needs most right now.
While the format of the event was different from a debate—it came across kind of like a job interview for each candidate—most of the questions (many of them sent in by ordinary Americans) weren’t all that surprising. Warren asked each man about abortion (when does an unborn child gain human rights?), gay and lesbian rights (how should we define ‘marriage’?), stem cell research (should we be using embryos?), faith-based organizations (to what extent should we limit how they spend Federal funds?), education (should there be merit pay for teachers?), taxes (how much does a person need to earn to be considered rich?), national security (when it is okay to commit troops abroad?), and America’s role in the world (what should be do to end religious persecution? what should be done to end human trafficking?).
For the most part, the candidates’ answers weren’t all that surprising, either, although they did shed some light onto each man’s character and beliefs.
The lamest question, in my opinion, was whether or not the candidates would support an emergency plan to help the world’s 148 million orphaned children find homes. I mean, who is going to say, “No, the orphans should rot in the orphanages!”? (In typical form, Obama answered this by saying that we should prevent children from becoming orphaned in the first place, and McCain told the story about how his wife, Cindy, brought home their daughter from an orphanage in Bangladesh 17 years ago. For more on McCain’s anecdotes, keep reading.)
The most interesting questions and answers were more directly about character and beliefs rather than stump-speech topics.
Warren led off, for example, by asking each man to name three people who influenced him most. Yeah, yeah, that’s kind of a clichéd question. But the answers, in my opinion, spoke volumes about how each man wants to be perceived. Obama’s answer: his mother, his grandmother, and anyone who challenges his assumptions. McCain’s answer: General David Petraeus, politician/civil rights hero John Lewis, and eBay CEO Meg Whitman.
Personal, revealing answers were also coaxed out of the candidates by asking them about their own greatest moral failure. Obama: being selfish as a young person, and having to struggle to learn that life is about more than just him. McCain: the failure of his first marriage.
The job interview aspect of the forum was apparent in questions like this one: What is something you’ve changed your mind about in the past ten years? Obama: welfare reform. He was skeptical that Clinton’s reforms would work. Now he believes that jobs/work must be central to any social policy. McCain: offshore drilling. He now believes that we need to drill offshore America now, in addition to persuing alternative energy sources, and that this is a national security issue.
In one of my favorite questions of the evening, Warren asked each candidate to provide an example of the most gut-wrenching decision he ever had to make and how he went about making it. I predicted that Obama’s answer would be deciding to leave his church. But no. Answer? Opposing the war in Iraq and voting against it when virtually all of his fellow legislators voted in favor.
McCain answered that question with an anecdote, which by the end of his session with Warren became old hat; he even joked more than once that “this is the last time I’ll tell a story, I promise.” In this case, the story was from his time as a prisoner of war. He was offered early release due to strings being pulled, but turned it down on principle. He made that decision despite being in pretty bad physical shape at the time, and had to endure several more years of imprisonment afterward.
Given that this forum was held in a church, it was hardly surprising that religion and religious beliefs popped up from time to time. In most instances, this was done in a pretty causal way, but Warren addressed the topic head on when he asked each candidate what it means to be a Christian. Obama: Being a Christian means that, on a daily basis, his beliefs lead him to look beyond himself and try to do God’s work on Earth. It’s not just about words, he said, but about deeds. He puts his faith in God to give him confidence needed to try things—like running for President—that inevitably result in screwing up from time to time.
McCain answered this question with another anecdote from his time as a prisoner, meant to exemplify how a Christian should behave. When he was in prison, kept in solitary confinement, a particular guard once came in and loosened his restraining ropes. The guard later came back and tightened the ropes again so no one would find out. Then, at Christmas-time, each of the prisoners was allowed outside for a few minutes, and while McCain was enjoying this short reprieve, the same guard came by and scratched a cross in the dirt with his shoe. He left it for a few minutes, as the two men just stood there. Then he rubbed the cross out and walked away. For a few moments, McCain and the guard were just two Christians worshipping together.
One of my favorite sound bytes from Obama came when Warren asked whether evil exists and, if so, what we should do about it. Evil does exist and must be confronted squarely, Obama said, but with humility.
“Just because we think our intentions are good doesn’t mean we will be doing good,” Obama said. Amen to that.
(McCain’s answer to that question, by the way, was to rattle off standard rhetoric about bringing Osama Bin Ladin to justice and defeating radical Islamist extremism.)
The most loaded answer of the evening, in my opinion, was Obama’s response when Warren asked him to pick a Supreme Court Justice currently on the bench that he would not have nominated.
“Clarence Thomas,” Obama said. “I don’t think he was a strong enough jurist or legal scholar at that time.”
Obama has made a point of not shying away from the topic of race, and of trying to lead a discussion that moves beyond race. This answer, while clearly intended to focus on the capabilities of a potential Justice, rather than the color of his skin, nonetheless was so powerful because it illustrated that Americans haven’t moved beyond race, not really. If we had, the answer wouldn’t have seemed to startling. Or maybe it’s just me who isn’t color blind yet, despite my best intentions.
(McCain answered this question, once again, with standard rhetoric, rattling off names of the left-wing or moderate Justices whom he would not have nominated, warning against picking Justices who will legislate from the bench, and praising President Bush for nominating Alito and Roberts.)
In perhaps the most job interview-like question of the evening, Warren asked each candidate to say, in a minute or less, why he wants to be President. Obama said it’s because he wants to keep alive an America where everyone has a shot at success—something that’s slipping away because we keep putting off difficult decisions that will benefit future generations. Obama said he’s qualified to be President because his mother taught him to have empathy, to imagine standing in other people’s shoes.
“I have the ability to build bridges,” he boasted. “And I hope to have the opportunity to do that.”
McCain’s answer wasn’t much different: “I want to inspire a generation of Americans to serve something other than themselves.”
McCain said he’s qualified to be President because he has spent his life putting himself second: joining the Navy at age 17, serving in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, working across the political aisle for the common good.
“I will be the president of every American and I’ll always put my country first,” McCain pledged.
Although I stand by my opinion that Obama won the evening, I do have to give McCain bonus points for working in a reference to 9/11 during the first five minutes of his interview, and also for mentioning homeschooling during his answer about merit pay for teachers.
Also, in my opinion McCain gets bonus points for uttering the most clichéd sound byte of the evening: “Even in the worst places in the world, people still harbor the hope and dream to have freedom and democracy,” he said, adding that America is the most unusual experiment in history and he is privileged to be part of it.
