First impressions on the “Forum on Faith”

So I finished watching the “Forum on Faith” attended by both Obama and McCain and thought I’d share some of my initial impressions.

Obama was up first tonight, and I thought it was an okay performance.  Actually, performance was the wrong word.  I think unlike McCain, Obama sat down and answered the questions with what seemed to be his honest beliefs.  I did not agree with all of Obama’s answers.  His stance against same-sex unions (even though he’s for civil unions) seems intellectually untenable to me.  Also his support of faith-based initiatives makes me uncomfortable as I’m for a very rigid separation of church and state.  Overall, I thought he was very direct and honest about his religious beliefs (which was the main focus of this forum anyway) and if nothing else hopefully finally put to rest the rumor that he is muslim.

McCain, on the other hand, seemed much stiffer and gave his answers in a much more “stump speech” fashion.  Instead of addressing his personal faith, he seemed to try to hit the talking points much more than Obama.  Like his response to wise people he would look to for guidance, he named Gen. Petraeus.  That was his first answer and seemed like a very political answer to me.  Another was his response to the Supreme Court justice question.  He listed the four “liberal” justices and said he didn’t like them because they legislated from the bench.  That’s straight out of the republican party talking points.  Maybe it should be called the Straight Talking Points Express?

What surprises me a lot is how (almost unanimously) most of the talking heads on TV think McCain was great tonight and that Obama was too long-winded.  I understand the need to give short answers sometimes, but this forum didn’t strike me as one of those times.  I guess the bar was set so low for McCain that the fact he didn’t enrage and rip Rick Warren’s head off means he was the winner of the night.

Maybe it’s just their natural speaking patterns, but I was much more comfortable listening to Obama talk as opposed to McCain.  McCain never really went into depth on a lot of the answers he gave; whereas, Obama had a lot of nuance with his answers.  After eight years of Bush, nuance is nice.  Being able to give detailed responses about how your beliefs/opinions came about is rather refreshing.

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