Obama and McCain Debate in Nashville on October 7th

In a CNN poll of undecided voters, 12 thought that Barack Obama had won October 7th's Presidential debate in Nashville at Belmont University, and 10 thought that Senator John McCain had won.

I was present in the Press Room during the Belmont Debate, sitting next to Joan Canete Bayle, U.S. Correspondent for Spain's "el Periodico" out of Barcelona. One area that Joan was most surprised about was the part of the debate that centered on health care. He said, "The European view is that health care is a right," stating that Europeans cannot understand our health care system. At one point in the debate, Senator John McCain, the Republican Presidential nominee, said, "Of course they (small business owners) all want to do that (insure their employees and insure their kids)."

No, Senator McCain, they do not all want to do that. I was a small business owner for close to 20 years and I had 2 full-time employees. I made sure that my 2 full-time employees were insured, but my successor had no intention of going the extra mile to insure anyone and, in 900 other franchise centers, there was a real determination to avoid having to insure full-time employees, if it was possible to do so.

The weather was bad at Belmont, but one of the things that impressed the press, with whom I was sitting, was the quality of the free buffet served them. It involved scalloped potatoes, smoked turkey, ham, pecan pie, two kinds of salads and, as one other media worker said (Joe, from the Nashville ABC affiliate in town, who said he had only had 4 hours off in the last 3 days), "It was the best food we've had anywhere." I actually interviewed 2 of the women responsible for the food, Denise Rucker and Kelly Johnson, who work for Sodexho Food Service that put on the great free feed, which I was told was at least partially underwritten by Anheuser-Busch. One neat thing: the famous correspondent in line ahead of me.