So, I watched the Saddleback Civil Forum with Rick Warren interviewing Obama & McCain on Saturday night. Actually, I watched the re-run because my boys were playing a preseason game during the live airing. I think that says a lot about my interests, especially considering I had never heard more than 2 minutes of Obama or McCain talking before Saturday night. I usually wait until crunch time to research candidates and come to a decision.
Listening to the questions and answers prompted me to plan a series of blog posts about the questions that were asked, spinning them a little to the topics of leadership and church culture, and sharing my opinion on them (which isn't worth much but hey, I'm out of ideas here).
Here are some general thoughts I had after watching it:
- Rick Warren has major influence. I'm glad he's using it for God's purposes (had to sneak that word in). He handled the forum well.
- Obama isn't the orator I heard he was. My guess is that he's pretty good when giving a speech but isn't good at shooting from the hip. Most people (including me) are in that category but it was down right difficult to listen to him at some points with the stuttering and stumbling.
- I'd love to see a detailed plan (with numbers) of Obama's tax plan. Simply because his plan made me wonder what percentage of U.S. income is brought in the by the "rich" and what is brought in by everyone else. Im a nerd and love to crunch those numbers to see what we're looking at in terms of tax revenue if there was a change.
- Both candidates talked about their faith a lot, and I wondered whether or not that was common or was more of "when in Rome...."
- McCain is like a poster child for Republicans......old, fundamental, decisive, tough.
- McCain had answers quickly. Most of the time I was thinking about how much trouble I would have been in if those questions were posed to me (can I get a lifeline?).
- McCain told a lot of stories. Stories help speakers connect with their audience and help people remember what was said. I wonder if that was planned because of those reasons.
