Given his past mediocre performances in debates with Obama, I think Senator McCain needs a little help in coming up with a kicker of a sound bite that will echo all the way through to election day. Here are my 5 kicker comments which I'd like to hear Senator McCain say to Senator Obama at tonight's debate...,
 
5.-  Denying your connections to radical community organizations? Oh come now Senator Obama, we all know the ACORN doesn't fall far from the tree...
 
4. - It must be a bumpy ride for your campaign Senator Obama considering all the people you've thrown under the bus.
 
3. - When it comes to negotiating with leaders who sponsor terror, it seems Senator Obama practices what he preaches, he has already sat down with William Ayers face to face without preconditions.
 
2. - Senator Obama, we've heard about your plan to raise the taxes of our nation's plumbers, you should be giving them a break Senator since your tax plan will cause more citizens to watch more of thier money going down the drain.
 
1. - You can call your plans for the country whatever you like Senator, but there's no hiding the truth , you can't put lipstick on a socialist.
 
- Mike Silverman

Senator McCain had a great opportunity to teach a large segment of the public a lesson in the real causes of the housing market slump. He had the opportunity to point out that the Democrats were trying to obfuscate thier own culpability by playing the traditional class warfare game and redirecting the blame to a vaguely defined "greed on Wall Street" as the boogeyman. He had the chance to point out that it was not de-regulation of financial markets that caused this problem, but it was precisely "bad regulation" of quasi public entities called FreddieMac and FannieMae in concert with bad legislation forcing loan eligibility to be determined by impossibly low standards, and all of it protected by Barney Frank who declared "''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''. McCain had the chance to point out that House Republicans introduced a bill in 2005 that would have reigned in the sick practices of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but it was dead on arrival in the Senate because it lacked enough votes in the closely divided party line Senate to prevent Democrats from filibustering it. He had the opportunity to point out that top recipients of campaign contributions from these horribly mismanaged lending agencies included Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. There was a lot that I wished he had said, that he didn't. I wasn't overly impressed with the debate.  There was little excitement, very little new from the candidates. Obama delivered his usual set of half truths and innuendo about McCain while deflecting discussion of critical problems with his proposed tax hikes, playing the same old tried worn out class warfare card declaring people who have succeeded financially as villains and everyone else as victims. McCain had a great line when he said he wanted a spending freeze across the board in all federally funded programs, God bless him for that.., and Obama naturally criticized that..., saying he would use a scalpel to stop spending in certain areas, which of course means he wants to increase spending in many places, which of course is fodder for his desire to raise taxes. Obama with a scalpel, that's a frightening image. He's the last person I'd ever trust to perform surgery. I would like to have seen McCain force Obama to talk about Richard Ayers, and his connections with ACORN, and his choice not to wear a US flag lapel pin, and his comment about bitter people clinging to guns and religion, how Biden questioned Obama's judgment when he said that Hillary might have been a better pick than himself for VP and how unfortunate it was that Obama passed up the opportunity to help women break that final glass ceiling, and how Obama supported a bill to educate kindergartners about sexually transmitted diseases, and how it could be that he had no knowledge of the hateful anti-American rhetoric spewed by his own pastor for 20 years while he attended that church. But, he didn't bring those topics up, unfortunately. Overall, McCain had the edge on experience and knowledge. I think that came through clearly.  McCain was good. But I also feel he could have done better.
 
- Mike Silverman

One of the typical problems with McCain's stump speeches is thier tendancy to become flaccid. Actually, today he was rather lively. He had some of that energy and tenacity showing through , like those images we all saw of him carrying his bags by himself through the airport during the primaries as he pressed forward with his campaign even when he couldn't afford to maintain a campaign staff. Look, the one thing McCain has in great abundance is personal courage... ( though it would have been nice to see some of that come through by defying the bailout bill)..., and if I had to choose who I wanted on my side in a fight, I'd choose McCain at his 72 years of age over the much younger Obama any day. Can you picture a boxing match between those two?  Obama would be down in the first round.  John McCain is an enigma.  As Conservatives, we are perpetually flabbergasted at the times when he leans left and becomes essentially a Democrat, yet we love his patriotism and his reverence of the military , his sacrifices for the country, his pro life stance, his distaste for overspending..., and then we scratch our heads at his desire to consult Al Gore on how to approach global warming. Maverick isn't quite the right word for it. He doesn't see himself as owing loyalty to a political party, and often bristles at the notion that he might be on the wrong side of an issue.  He's stubborn, independent, and loyal to what he feels is the best interest of the country.  Not a Conservative, not a Liberal, but he's not in the middle either.  When he goes in one direction or the other, he goes all the way.  That's actually a comforting thought in one respect. McCain is not wishy-washy, he is confident in his ability to choose the best course of action even if all the rest of us might have a problem with the choice he made. A leader must have confidence in his ( or her) ability to lead.  I know McCain has that. He's always had that. I've seen nothing of that in Obama. The other thing we can say without fear of contradiction is that McCain is honest about his position , regardless of who disagrees with him. He has fair reasons to back up his positions, even if there might be better reasons he should "not"be taking that position, such as the McCain Feingold bill..., McCain-Kennedy bill...etc.  So, McCain has self confidence, a proven ability to lead, and honesty. He also has the experience in world affairs.  Obama strikes out on all four of those.  John McCain was never my first choice as Republican candidate for President, but he's a far better runner up than Barack Obama.  McCain doesn't have to do a lot to sell himself, most people have heard of him and know more about him than the other sitting Senators.  But he does have to sell something tonight at the debate.  He needs to strip the varnish off Obama and lay bare the real product underneath. He needs to expose the real danger of an Obama presidency and sell that danger to the public. He needs to do it by sharply contrasting what he would do to protect the country, the economy, and our social values with how Obama would destroy those things.  McCain is capable of making the sale, if  he simply gets past his desire to have liberals love him.  I think he's getting to that point. All during his campaign he's been trying hard to prove he does not have a temper, to prove his critics wrong about his quick fuse.  Well, tonight he needs to let a little of that temper lose, in a positive way, to show his passion for leading this country in the right direction and for driving home the point that Obama will lead us into a train wreck.

 - Mike Silverman

What do you think John McCain should say at the Debate tonight?  Here are four things I'd like to hear him talk about.

John McCain and Sarah Palin must win this election.  We simply can not afford an Obama/Biden administration. The attempts to tear down Sarah and John are going to rise more and more over the next few weeks. We need to keep from falling into the trap of buying into those attacks and keep from falling into despair over polling numbers. DO NOT PUT YOUR FUTURE IN THE HANDS OF POLLSTERS! Liberal media pundits will try to dispirit you with unbalanced polling data. Pay no attention to any negative polling. We will win this if we just get out there and vote. That is the absolute bottom line.  Personally, I intend to be first in line on election day to cast my ballot for McCain/Palin and for any and all the Republicans running in my state of Massachusetts. No barking pundits out there trying to assassinate the character and quality of our candidates is going to destroy my enthusiasm to cast my ballot for them this November. No critique of debate performance will matter at all. We should make this the biggest Republican turnout in vote history. Let's embarass the Democrats by drowning them out at the polling booths and putting McCain/Palin in by such huge numbers that the liberal pundits will be choking on thier own tongues in disbelief. We can make this happen.

 Now, having said that, I need to vent my disgust about this economic bailout package the Senate passed. Would you like to know why in that AP poll 8 out of ten people say that this economic fallout with the banking industry will effect them?  Because  of all the screaming panicking pundits doing thier very best to scare people out of thier wits, pounding us every day, every night, every waking moment with insane tripe about the end of days for the united states, this has been a sickening display of howling self-serving elitists with delusions of grandeur wanting to call attention to themselves as the go-to illuminati of economic armageddon.  We need political leaders giving us positive reinforcement on the strong values of the American institutions that have made this the greatest place on earth to live, not prophets of doom crying about the apocalypse.  If we are in such horrible, awful dire straits, why are people all over the world still coming by the ten's of thousands to the US to seek economic prosperity? Have they stopped coming here?  No, even with some weakness in the current economy we are still the strongest economic power on earth. Now how many days has it been since the predicted doom of our economy?  Quite  few. And we're still in business, and not in a depression.  Also, John McCain is destroying himself by voting in favor of this bill. He can now no longer get up on the stump and declare that he is opposed to earmarks.  That nice little speech he likes to give where he takes his pen out of his pocket and waves it around, showing how he's going to veto any spending bill with pork in it is now an utter fairytale and he can be called on it all day long.  This was a terrible and unfortunate move for him. VERY VERY DISAPPOINTING.  I will still vote for John , but it will be much more an anti-Obama, pro-Palin vote, and much less a pro-McCain vote. This ridiculous vote has caused many Movement Conservatives to want to pull thier McCain dartboards out again. This is the frustrating behavior that Conservatives are so very familiar with from McCain's political career, sadly he has not learned anything at all from this campaign. He has not learned who has his back, namely the Republican base, he has not learned how to keep from alienating the base that he needs to carry him to the White House and give him a mandate. John McCain is a great man, but he can be an infuriating politician. Perhaps the saddest thing of all in this, is that his vote has POISONED Governor Palin. Now , as his running mate, she has to go out and support this asinine vote he made and defend his approving ridiculous earmarks.  If Senator McCain want's to ruin his own political capitol with his inane politics, fine, let him destroy himself, but how dare he drag down Sarah Palin with him? With one hand he did a great thing by giving Sarah Palin a huge chance to boost her political career and credentials and bring a real Conservative up to the forefront, and with the other hand he slaps her in chains and tosses her in the ocean. This is tragic.
 
- Mike Silverman

Republican politicians, and particularly Conservatives , are tougher than anyone else in politics today.  They need to be, since they are the endless target of nearly all mainstream press smears, screeching left wing zealots supporting every social taboo in existence, and backstabbing political colleagues in the Democrat party. If, despite all this, Conservative politicians stand fast on thier principles then they are by far the toughest politicians around this country today and very worthy leaders. By contrast, Liberal Democrat politicians today can be soft, squishy, and cowardly..., and still be liberal. They get petted by the media, cheered by the screaming extremists, and get thier way with jelly spined moderates in the Republican party. They need exert very little effort to be who they are.  And, Democrat politicians don't need to concern themselves that moderators at debates between Republican and Democrat might be lopsided conservative Republican supporters. They won't be. Never have been.  So, where does that bring us?  Nowhere.  The upcoming debate between Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Biden is being moderated by a woman named Gwen Ifill, who loathes Republicans. Wow.., that's a surprise ( not ). Here's a quote from the gracious Gwen Ifill commenting on Senate Republcians who, in 1998, defeated a bill for campaign finance reform, and Ms. Ifill was obviously not happy that the Senate Republicans expressed satisfaction at having done so..., Here's her quote...,

"It was a bill that was doomed to die. The last time you heard people so eager to claim responsibility for something like this, they were terrorists." — NBC reporter Gwen Ifill, February 27 Washington Week in Review on PBS. ( source = https://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/bestof/1998/best7-9.asp )

Yes, she called Republicans terrorists. This is the fair minded level headed moderator who will be throwing questions of her own design at Sarah Palin.  Now..., don't misunderstand. I actually think this wonderful. What better way to contrast the differences between a strident Liberal extremist woman and a strong confident everyday Conservative woman?  Sarah will come out fine from this, and even more so if Ms. Ifill stoops to trying to sabotage Sarah Palin. If Ms. Ifill gets testy with her Sarah should just flash that friendly smile, answer the questions smoothly, and show that she's not the least bit rattled by spiteful left wing windbags. Nothing irks Liberals more than having no effect on the people they target.

- Mike Silverman , Milford MA