Things I Wish I Heard in Debate #3

Last night was kind of funny. McCain held it together reasonably well in the first two debates, but I really felt like we were watching the man get unhinged on TV. It was kind of freaky, really.

I had just one zinger I thought Obama could have hit him with. Early in the debate, they went back and forth on the income tax issue (long live Joe the Plumber!), and McCain tried to turn Obama into Robin Hood with mass redistribution of the wealth (note to John: people like Robin Hood). There was a moment when McCain said "in such tough economic times, why would you want to raise taxes on anyone?" Obama wisely let that go, though he addressed it as a matter of fairness, hitting the bullet points for fair tax policy.

But then they started talking about corporate taxes, and McCain pulled a stat out of his ass about Ireland when he claimed that corporate taxes in the U.S. being the second highest in the world. It was remarkable that in an election that is still ostensibly to be decided by real, natural people, not the corporations who have dumped millions of dollars in each of their campaigns, that McCain, in his last guaranteed free prime time TV placement before he concedes on the evening of 11/4, decides to take up the cause of the "little guy": Exxon Mobil and all the rest of those bastards. I wonder how that played across the nation.

Obama basically let it go, but it was the perfect opportunity to nail McCain on this: the reason our corporate taxes are higher (on paper) than most other nations is because we have low personal income taxes. Does McCain prefer lower corporate taxes, which would shift the burden of paying for everything that the government does more directly to the people like Joe Plumber? Sounds kind of socialist, John. Maybe I should reconsider your candidacy.