So yesterday I got myself up early in the morning to make it to Oakland University for John McCain’s town hall meeting. I got up specifically just so I could ask some questions, I’ve seen enough of him on the news to know how he stands on most things. Some of it I like, and some of it I don’t. I’m not going into specifics, but I’m not exactly a support of his (and you all know how I stand on people like Obama). Anyways, I had 2 questions I wanted to ask regarding:
- The value of the dollar
and - If his temper would be an issue as president
Apparently the rest of the meeting was so boring that my temper question raised a few eyebrows over at places like MSNBC, FOX, CBS and was even a featured story on CNN. Google news even gave it it’s own section. City newspapers such as the LA Times and the New York Times also had their say.
The Libby Quaid of the Associated press picked it up as well, so it’s been popping upon all sorts of places from Yahoo! News to every other news palce you can think of. The blogosphere also started reacting, placed including the Pensito Review, Hot Air, and Weasel Zippers (although I’m sure there’s others).
I’m working right now on getting the full question(s) up on here so I can respond with my reasoning in a better fashion, but for now we’ll have to do with the CNN / WDIV video (which is better than the youtube one), which they don’t let you hotlink so you have to go HERE to view it.
Now, I don’t like the video at all. It completely cuts off the first part of my second question, initially adressing the issue, and hearing a response from him. However it starts with my response from what he said which was something along the lines of “I get angry because I have passion”. It makes me look like I opened my statement praising his passion, which I didn’t do. That was not my intent.
I do however, respect the fact that he is passionate about what he does. I feel if you’re going to be one of 2 people representing a state, you damn well better be passionate about it.
I also highly respect the fact that he is actually taking audience questions, which has monumental potential for catastrophe. But I think it’s something that every politician should do, and the audience should not discourage that. Which is why I asked the question I did in the manner that I asked it. He’s giving us the chance to talk to him one on one, no reason why we can’t do it like civilized people. (That, Trish at the Pensito Review is why I asked the question nicely. And for the record, no, I didn’t lose a bet).
Besides, I did a good job of seperating myself from the protesters who I hung out with before we all went over in a group to the meeting. I didn’t want to spoil my assimilation by attempting to make an ass out of McCain and instead make an ass out of myself (which I’m sure some will argue I did anyways).
There were tougher questions I could have thrown at him. About the war, the economy, how he always votes party line when things matter. I could have gotten into an argument with him about his response, as it wasn’t exactly what I was referring to. I don’t care that he gets angry about a bridge to nowhere. That’s not special, so do I. But I don’t get into it and scream “fuck you” to show how angry I am with other senators of the same party. That’s just rediculous, and he knew damn well what I was talking about and chose to ignore the basis of it and talk about how he’s angry with the status quo.
The more I sat there contemplating asking this question, the more I thought it would end like this. His straight talk is more of a straight and narrow line for what he wants to address, which I think he proved very well yesterday if you listen to his responses on a lot of these questions. But that’s neither here nor there.
It also identified me in the papers as a “concerned republican voter”, which I did say. Which was more of my way of identifying myself as someone who does not support Clinton or Obama, as with a question like that you can almost hear the crowd under their breath go “here’s more liberal hippie bullshit”, so I had to put that to rest quickly.
So in all, I felt the answer was unsatisfactory, and of course he played politics with it. If your essential response to “Will you temper be a problem” is “I’m an angry guy”, then you’ve raised more questions than you’ve answered.
