The Last Presidential Debate

I was actually able to sit through the third presidential debate after finding the first two to be absolutely unwatchable, and quite boring! I thought both Barack Obama and John McCain came out of this debate without looking too bad. Of course, the debate did little to change my decision to vote for Obama on November 4.

While McCain tried to attack Obama on his "associations" during the debate, I felt that Obama's reply, explaining them, was very good. Hopefully Obama made this a non-issue for the remainder of the campaign, although I doubt that will be the case.

I found McCain's reaction to Obama saying that "Joe the Plumber" would pay zero fines if he did not provide health insurance for his employees to be priceless.

I think McCain has some good ideas, not enough to get me to vote for him though, but he also expressed an idea that I found a bit irritating. At about an hour and eighteen minutes in the debate, while discussing education and how crappy American schools are doing at educating children, in his opinion anyway, McCain said, "We need to encourage programs such as Teach for America and Troops to Teachers where people, after having served in the military, can go right to teaching and not have to take these examinations which -- or have the certification that some are required in some states." So, McCain's plan to improve education is to hire teachers who are not certified in the areas in which they will be teaching. I am sure these programs have done some good, but to think someone can be a good teacher simply because he or she served in the military is ludicrous!