Rick Warren Megachurch Running Diary

Preview: Apparently, due to a coin flip, Barack Obama will sit down with Rick Warren for the first hour, while McCain (who is in some booth and can’t hear what’s going on – no kidding) will handle the second hour. They won’t be answering questions together at all, though the questions proposed to each will be identical. Have to say, I didn’t know about the Family Feud style format. Maybe the audience could award points, and whoever gets to 200 in the fewest number of questions could receive $20,000. Somebody get J. Peterman on the line.

8:02: And we’re off.

8:03: Rick Warren: “We believe in the separation of church and state, but we don’t believe in the separation between faith and politics.” Better to get that out of the way at the beginning.

8:04: Rick Warren seems a little nervous.

8:05: Q: Who are the three wisest people you know in your life and who would you listen to if you became president? Barack: my wife, my grandmother, and everyone I’ve ever met. Solid answer.

8:07: Barack seems almost too engaged. Where there’s that constant inner dialogue, and he’s trying really hard to be articulate and engaging without saying something he’ll regret. When he’s doing this he sometimes comes off as though he’s reaching for answers (which I suppose he is on some level) I generally don’t think this is when he’s at his best. I wish he’d just shoot from the hip every once in a while.

8:12: These aren’t good questions for Barack. It isn’t super easy to side step them, unless you just have some inner dogma that kicks in and answers for you. I actually think this format favors McCain.

8:15: They have commercials? Really?

8:19: World View section. I predict Obama excels here.

8:20: Q: “What does that mean to you, to trust in Christ?”
Obama: I believe in Jesus. Seriously. I promise.

8:21: Warren seems like he’s settled down a little bit. Next up: abortion.

8:23: He at least says he’s pro-choice. Didn’t like his answer though. He should have used this as an opportunity to appear principled. He’s beating this new “abortion reduction” Democratic plank into the ground.

8:26: Gay marriage.

8:27: Barack: “blah blah, man and a woman…civil union good, same-sex marriage bad” I know he thinks this is his only path, but this idiocy still makes me roll my eyes.

8:28: Stem cell research.

8:30: I was wrong about him being good in this segment. I didn’t think he was foolish enough to try to actually win this crowd. He had to use this opportunity to sound principled, and to speak to his own base. Instead he’s turned it into a popularity contest on purpose. Let me tell you who wins that.

8:33: He should NOT have answered this Supreme Court question. Thomas is incompetent of course, but that’s a mistake. He should have talked about why it was inappropriate to comment, since he may directly address the composition of the court in the future. $20 says McCain either sidesteps it completely, or says Stevens, and all the other pro-choice judges (assuming he can remember their names) and gets a huge applause from the crowd.

8:36: Yawn. Obama’s dying.

8:37: My girlfriend: “This is just painful.” No argument here.

8:40: Obama sounds a little better on the tax section.

8:45: International section.

8:48: I’m not missing Phelps going for his 8th gold am I?

8:51: Q: What should we do about (Christian) religious persecution around the world?

8:52: These questions are right in McCain’s wheelhouse. He’s a crowd pleaser if nothing else and he’ll tell them exactly what they want to hear, whether or not he actually believes it.

8:53: Warren: Human trafficking is, “the 3rd fastest growing industry in the world”. Huh? How do you…huh?

8:54: Q: Why do you want to be president?

8:55: Obama’s answer is good. I think he’s settling in.

8:57: And…he’s done.

8:58: Enter John McCain. He and Barack exchange an awkward half hug.

9:01: McCain’s on.

9:02: What three people question. McCain: Petraus, an injured soldier, and the COE of e-bay.

9:04 McCain actually brings up his first marriage. First time I’ve heard him do that. Probably a good idea. You know anybody in this crowd that’s heard about that was curious.

9:06: Seems clear Warren feels more comfortable with McCain.

9:07 McCain just finished mostly fabricating a list of times he went against his party’s wishes. Too bad Warren doesn’t know or care enough for a follow-up.

9:08: McCain: “blah, blah, drill for more oil” (smile) (big applause)

9:09: The crowd is SO much more responsive to McCain, and he seems particularly cogent tonight.

9:10: McCain’s talking about being tortured. Pretty compelling stuff.

9:12: First commercial break. This is a massacre in the making. Every thing about this was suited to make McCain look like a rock star and Obama look comparatively less popular. Now, that’s fine if that’s the paradigm you’re working with, you just except that and consider your strategy accordingly (or you just don’t do it). But, Obama didn’t get the memo. He intentionally treated it as some sort of pandering-for-white-evangelical-votes competition, pissing his own base off in the process.

9:18: McCain’s telling another long anecdote about being a P.O.W. Big applause.

9:19: McCain’s wants to ban abortion (big applause).

9:19: My girlfriend: “What about for rape victims?” (good question, though I guess Warren didn’t agree)

9:20: McCain doesn’t want the gays to get married. (big applause)

9:21: Apparently he’s cool with gay Californian’s getting married as long as they don’t have to recognize it in Arizona. I actually didn’t know that.

9:22: McCain: We should defeat evil (big applause).

9:23: McCain: I’ll follow Bin Laden to the gates of hell (big applause).

9:24: We won’t leave Iraq until we attain victory, and we will (big applause).

9:25: The Supreme Court Justice question: He named all four liberal justices. He couldn’t remember Stevens’ name for a minute. You’ve got to give me points for calling that one. Says Roberts and Alito have been great.

9:27: Another anecdote, this time about Katrina. Don’t know why Obama didn’t do more of this.

9:31: Warren’s leading McCain on these questions a lot more than he did Obama.
Q: Define rich.

9:32: McCain: “I want everybody to be rich” (big applause).

9:33: McCain’s answer to the rich question: $5 million. He realizes immediately that that was the wrong answer, and talks about how he was joking and how his answer will be “distorted”. He’s trying to backtrack a bit.

9:37: Another commercial break. McCain struggled a little bit there at the end, but to borrow a sports metaphor, you’ve got more margin for error at home.

9:40: Warren: “We’re without a doubt the most blessed nation in the world.” Well, that’s good to know.

9:42: McCain: “Our job is to stop genocide whenever we can.”

9:44: Warren throws McCain a softball about Georgia that he didn’t to Obama. Fair and balanced. McCain is using this as a springboard to talk about the resurgence of Russian Empire. Full of inflammatory language. On Georgia: “It’s a beautiful little country.” Can someone ask him if he thinks we should send troops into Georgia if Russia won’t get out?

9:47McCain: “Our Judeo-Christian traditions dictate that we do not allow people to be oppressed around the world” (I got this as close as I could. Does anybody have TiVo? I’d love the exact quote.) Speaking for every realist everywhere: This kind of uncompromising, crusader rhetoric is stupid and dangerous and is the best possible illustration of why this man cannot be president. It wouldn’t bother me at all if I didn’t think he was completely serious, and surrounded by people that think the same thing.

9:49: McCain: We need to make adoption easier (except for gays).

9:50: Another anecdote about adopting an orphan.

9:53: They’re done.

Recap: McCain came across as much more personable, and was destined to be far more popular with this crowd. His rhetoric actually bordered on uplifting at times, which is a marked change. He didn’t mention Obama once, and wasn’t nakedly partisan at all. If this was your first exposure to him this election cycle (and I’m sure it was for some people) you might not laugh out loud when you heard him described as a “maverick”.

Obama focused way too much on minutia, and spent almost no time letting people get to know him better. He was also strangely pandering at times, which was stupid, as he was never going to be able to compete with the unadulterated pander-fest that was McCain’s segment.

Don’t know how this gets portrayed in the media tomorrow, and I’ve been wrong about these things before, but I say Obama looked comparatively bad and subsequent coverage will accurately reflect it. I’m off to watch Phelps now.