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The moderator said that McCain was the first Presidential candidate to accept questions at the National Urban League to take questions. And McCain took a lot of them. John is clearly fast on his, and it’s not surprising that Barack does not want to debate McCain in an informal setting.

Two major issues caught my attention. One McCain answered very well. The other less so.

On Crime, McCain emphasized Rudy Giuliani’s success in New York. He went a step beyond that to emphasize that similar tactics are working in Iraq, and they work for the same reasons: without security nothing is possible, but once security exists, the foundations for growth and trust exist. Obama, by contrast, opposes urban counter-insurgency operations. Obama supports a ‘Rumsfeld Doctrine’ of minimal policing both at home and abroad. I think that is dangerous, and McCain’s response is the way to go.

Unfortunately, McCain was weak on health care. He said he wanted every Ameriacn to have the opportunity to purchase health care, but did not emphasize the need for universal coverage that is required to keep America. Fareed Zakaria described this dynamic well in The Post American World (which I previously reviewed). We already have socialized health care in this country, and if we’re going to have this degree of massive government interference, we can at least create a system where losing your job doesn’t mean losing your health.