SADDLEBACK FEEDBACK

Saturday Night’s Political Forum hosted by Pastor Rick Warren was one of the most interesting campaign events this year. It was nice to hear someone from the right argue that it is essential that Americans (both conservative & liberal) learn to argue their viewpoints WITHOUT demonizing the other side. In coming to terms with the idea that we are all Americans (even when we disagree) we build upon the idea that we are greater as a nation together than we are as the sum of our separate ideologies.

I was impressed with how quickly Sen. McCain answered. He was direct and to the point. “On Message” as they say. When others suspected that he knew the answers in advance, I doubted it. I simply saw it as someone who has practiced turning every question to a preset campaign talking point. It’s an old debate trick and Sen. McCain seems very good at it. (Case in point: when asked by a reporter on the campaign trail to defend his love of the musical group ABBA, Sen. McCain explained that his musical development was interrupted by his five years in a POW camp.) Any and all questions leads back to either:
1) The Surge Worked
2) Drill now and drill everywhere
3) I was a POW
4) Life begins at conception

Senator Obama gave very nuanced answers. He frequently fumbled for the right way to express himself. This was seen by many as a sign of his inexperience and unsuitability for the job and I am not sure that it is an accurate assessment. Keep in mind that this was not particularly friendly territory for him and ANY misstatement would have been instantly jumped on by the McCain campaign, news anchors and the evangelicals. One could hardly blame him for weighing every word.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who see everything in terms of black & white and those who see the world as more complicated and filled with shades of gray. Sen. McCain sees clear cut answers to all problems. Senator Obama does not. The question of “when does life begin” is an excellent example of the differences. Senator McCain responded, “Life begins at conception”. That’s an answer short and sweet enough to appear on a bumper sticker. Many people (and most of the audience) agree with this viewpoint. Obama didn’t answer the question directly. He replied that if you are pro-life, you won’t agree with any definition but the one that McCain would eventually offer to the crowd. Sen. Obam realizes that an equal number of people disagree with that definition as agree with it. So Senator Obama’s discussion centered on finding a center ground that both sides could come to terms with….work together to reduce the number of abortions.
Who’s right & who’s wrong? Let’s look at a couple of hypothetical examples:
“Jane” is a 17 year old high school senior who discovers she is 6 weeks pregnant seven months before her senior prom….she decides to have an abortion. It’s her second one. It’s her choice but most pro-choice people I know would be disgusted with her actions.
“Jill” is a 30 year old stay at home mother of two who discovers she is six weeks pregnant three weeks after her husband is killed in an accident. He had no insurance and she has no job. She is told her unborn child will be born with a chronic illness that will require extensive care for the life of the child. She is also told that in giving birth she stands a good risk of not surviving the pregnancy herself. Does she risk her life (as the single mother of two other children) to bear a child she cannot afford to raise and will never be adopted because of the chronic health problems? Under pro-life beliefs, she has no choice.

This is the reason why I don’t like “bumper sticker” issues. Most things in life are too complex to boil down to simple answers. And Senator Obama seems to recognize that. I don’t mind that his most profound ideas come from pre-written speeches. I like the fact that he thinks about all aspects of a problem before speaking out. If he isn’t as good with an off the cuff comment…I can live with that if he comes to the right conclusions.

Senator McCain showed a strong willingness on Saturday night to confront evil! But what does that really mean? Tienamen Square in China in the 80’s was EVIL! How should we have confronted it? Invade Bejing?

In 2001, McCain told CNN within a month of 9/11 that we should attack Iraq because of 9/11! (We see how that is working out. Even the Bush administration now admits that Al Quida was not in Iraq (pre-9/11) and that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But John McCain wanted to “hit back”.) I would hope that America has seen the problems with “cowboy diplomacy”.

All the media talking heads looked at who won and who lost. And in doing so they missed the whole point. I appreciated the opportunity to see both candidates answering the same questions. We did get the opportunity to compare “apples to apples”. And it served to remind me, that the presidency is not a game of “gotcha”, with the person scoring the lowest gotcha number winning the prize. An election, should be about examining how the candidate comes to a conclusion on what is the best course for our nation to take. It’s not necessarily how you say it…it’s what you’re saying that counts.