The Dupree Report

Tonight, Democratic Nominee Barack Obama and Republican Nominee John McCain square off in their 3rd debate.  The first two debates were cordial and almost downright boring.  Tonight, John McCain, who many say is “way” behind in the polls has a chance to really do some damage but he needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat and hold it high for everyone to see.  Something to make Obama grasp for answers and look out of place.

Obama has been cool and collected the past two debates after what happened to him a few months ago at the faith based event where McCain cleaned his clock.  Obama has been careful not to take any town hall debates with McCain over the last couple of months as he refrained from really debating more with Clinton in the democratic primaries. 

I think that Barack feels the more he debates, the more he can slip up and so he stays away from them. 

McCain has so much to work with tonight.  American Terrorist Bill Ayers, Frank Marshall Wright, Odinga, Jeremiah Wright, ACORN, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Obama’s 95% tax rebate policy, Father Flannigan and many more.  McCain can exploit any of these things here but he has to make Obama uncomfortable from the start and keep it coming.  If Obama gets a spot to where he gets comfortable, he can play the four corners on McCain and frustrate him for not getting out his agenda. 

He’s done that already with putting out talking points already to the Drudge Report and other websites. 

If it were me, I would hit hard on the 95% no taxes that Obama has been promising.  The Wall Street Journal wrote about it just a couple of days ago when they said this:

Here’s the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be “refundable,” which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer — a federal check — from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this “welfare,” or in George McGovern’s 1972 campaign a “Demogrant.” Mr. Obama’s genius is to call it a tax cut.

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

Honestly, this shouldn’t be that hard for McCain but we have seen stranger things.  The problem for McCain is the networks of MSNBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and a few more.  See, what is going on in the media is a game of scorned journalist turned play-by-play analyst.  After the entire debate is over, CNN will show that Obama has won the debate whether he did or not.  That really plays bad because they have somewhat of a large audience from time to time. 

It probably won’t be good at all but we shall see.  So goes the debates tonight.