Where will the first face-to-face Town Hall style Obama/McCain debate take place?

Barack Oboma wouldn't dare getting off of the teleprompter, or letting people ask him questions he hasn't been coached on. I would think he would be specially careful to avoid members of the military or their families. In general he doesn't have their trust, and they would ask some hard questions that would be difficult for him to progressively nuance his way around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4fe9GlWS8

Questions Barack wouldn't want to get:
1) Why did you send our military to fight a war that doesn't impact terrorism, and cost us over 4,000 american soldiers, and 12 billion a month.... Oh wait you opposed that... my bad
2) Why don't you believe that all americans should be treated fairly and given equal rights. Why would you support banning civil unions and supporting a pray away the gay conference.... Oh that too is not you, it is that other guy, the old one and his "experienced" book banning VP.
3) Why do you not want to give the American people tax relief, why would you want the tax breaks just to be focused on large companies that send jobs overseas... Not again, really... that is the McCain guy, so you are in favor of tax cuts that would affect 95% of Americans, but not John McCain and his 7 homes.
I think it is interesting that each side believes the other candidate would do bad in those environments.

Here's how I would phrase those questions:

1) Why do you want to lose the war Iraq?

2) Why don't you believe that people should be judged by the content of their character instead of by race and quotas?

3) If you believe, as you say, that the economy is in bad shape, why would you increase the burden with tax increases? Why add tax burdens to the corporations that create jobs and put food on working people's tables? Why bite the hands that feed us?

@notable - WOW! What a moving video... I wish I'd watched the before rephrasing the above questions... that young man knows what true sacrifice is and articulates way better than I ever could.

who says mccain will do badly? the man has tried everything to get obama to debate. i'll say AGAIN..if obama is so sure the american people want what he's selling take mccain up on his offer to hold town hall meetings all across america. imho not only would it be good for america, but just think how many questions would be created on HD.

What does a victory in Iraq look like. How much will it cost US taxpayers. Why does Iraq have a 8 Billion dollar a month surplus, and yet WE pay 12 Billion a month to rebuild and protect their country. How many more American lives need to be lost before we allow Iraqi's to protect Iraqi's. How much longer are we going to avoid increasing troops needed in Afghanistan. Yes you were a prisoner of war, yes you were a brave American, but you were in "serious" discussions to switch from Republican to Democrat after you lost in 2000, so where are your loyalties.

@destry: it is not about Iraq, no matter how much "progressives" want it to be. It is a war on terrorism. The United States have gone seven years now without another attack like the one they suffered on 11 September 2001, and that is no small success. If terrorism were not affected by our success in Iraq, they would have had another attack by now (Chris Matthews asserted they come every two years, I believe, back in 2001).

What is it worth to the American tax payers not to have another attack? The loss of life was terrible, and the pain will never go away. However, there was also a major impact on the market. Wall Street took a dive, the airline industry was hit hard, tourism suffered and so forth. The reason this has recovered is because of the success in the war on terror. Look at what happened to Mexico's tourism industry when their latest kidnapping/decapitation/drug-terror crime wave hit. And inversely, see how Colombia is slowly but surely experiencing economic growth as they are getting their terror problem more under control.

Liberals may not like it, but our success depends on the success of the war on terror.

So the economy is better now than it was then? Unemployment? Home foreclosures? What about the fact that 2008 is deadliest year for our troops in Afghanistan since 2001. Have we lost focus on the war on terror. How exactly was Iraq the center of the war on terror. In 2006, White House spokesperson Tony Snow stated that Bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11. Today White House spokesperson said Bin Laden not the mastermind of 9/11. Did something change?

Well, yes, according to http://www.miseryindex.us/urbyyear.asp year-by-year data, we have a lower unemployment rate now (at least in 2007 - the last full year of data available). Here is the break down:
2001 4.76 4.76
2002 5.78 5.78
2003 5.99 5.99
2004 5.53 5.525
2005 5.08 5.08333333333333
2006 4.63 4.63333333333333
2007 4.61 4.60833333333333

Home foreclosures are up, but if it were not for liberal policies of "Fair Housing" and "Equal Opportunity", where they force lenders to give money to people who can not afford the loans, America would not have this problem. They wouldn't have the GMAC flayling around "needing" a government bailout either. (Liberals have tried their best to succeed in bringing down the US economy, where the terrorists had been failing.)

You are getting it wrong again. Iraq is a country. Afghanistan is a country. Terrorists are the center of the War on Terror. It goes where they go. That is the nature of asymetrical warfare - terrorists do not wear a uniform or carry a flag. They give their allegiance to no one but their radical notions. You may not understand it, but they want you killed - they understand it just fine.

How exactly was Iraq the center of the war on terror
Liberating Iraq was about a whole lot more than just the MSMs focus on the terror and weapons of mass destruction aspect.
Here's a refresher for those of us that forgot the other reasons:
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate)--H.J.Res.114--
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:5:./temp/~c1073wYLml::

I apologize for the broken link... my bad... second attempt:

<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:5:./temp/~c1073wYLml::>

Good article there fingers: here is another URL: http://tinyurl.com/3fuex3 It should be the same text, on a different site.

September 5, 2008
This morning’s big news is the jump in the unemployment rate to a frightening 6.1 percent in August 2008, up from 5.7 percent in July. This sharp increase underscores labor market deterioration for all groups and across almost all industries in August, with a total loss of 84,000 jobs in one month.

6.1 percent is hardly frightening for a snapshot number. It was that high five years ago in the US. France would love to have our unemployment numbers http://www.indexmundi.com/france/unemployment_rate.html

However, we should remember how conservatives all over the United States were warning congress that the "Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007" was going to raise unemployment rates. When it is more expensive to hire employees, then employers will not hire so many. It was another example of common sense that liberals couldn't understand.

first let me say the following statement is in no way being disrespectful to anybody. so far seems like a civil back and forth between differnt view points. i'm just adding to that, and hope it stays civil.

1) Why did you send our military to fight a war that doesn't impact terrorism - oh so killings 1000's of radical muslims who could be flying planes into buildings doesn't effect the war on terror?

cost us over 4,000 american soldiers, - first let me say that every soldier lost is very tragic. we lost 4,000 in 4 or 5 years. the radicals killed 3,000 civilians in one day. so lets just leave them alone and next time they hit the USA obama will give them a stern talking to..(no preconditions before the meeting)

Why would you support banning civil unions and supporting a pray away the gay conference - agree or disagree its what they believe. least they got the nads to say it. (not above their pay grade)

Why do you not want to give the American people tax relief - both sides have tax cut plans. let me ask this question..if a person don't pay taxes should they get a tax cut? bush has removed-made lower the number of people paying taxes. (yes there taken from their pay check, but they get them plus more back after filing) so you think they should just be given more money? can you say socialism-redistribution of wealth. mr joe smoe you made more money than bob smith. so joe we're gonna take some of yours and give it bob so he feels better.

i got a great idea. all the folks in the top 20 on the HD leader board has to give part of their earnings to the ones not in the top 20...sound fair? i'd say 20-25% would be a good starting point :O)

I dont have your fancy links, or your compelling arguments but i do have this. USA! USA! USA! nuff said.

@noble France has a higher unemployment rating than us. What else is new? Everyone knows that france sucks. Freedom fries anyone?

LOL... I like your HD socialism idea, diesel :-D We could take it a step further and everybody returns all their HD$ to Hubdub and then we all just chat about how we voted and we'd all feel really good because we'd never lose and if a question was settled wrong we'd just hold hands and laugh about it :-D Every once in a while Hubdub Admins would tell us the collective worth of all our predictions and we'd all have warm fuzzy feelings knowing we all contributed. 8^)

And yes, this is a civil discussion. Like iron sharpening iron, we are challenging ourselves and sharpening our ideas/beliefs... I don't expect to change anyone's minds and they probably wont change mine... but we'll all improve our debate skills.

I pity the poor-old-average-innocent-citizen that one day starts a debate with a person on the street that just happens to be a Hubduber... intellectual blood will flow and my $$$s on the Hubduber :-D

Ha ha so true. Anyone wish to start a question on that subject?

LOL - It takes a village! :-)

Name that year: Average hourly earnings were up 4.3 percent over the summer months; almost 49 percent of U.S. industries reported adding jobs; the economy grew by 3.3 percent in the second quarter, and productivity swelled by 4.3 percent.

If you said 2008, you are not only correct but also unwelcome in the mainstream media—and in Democrat politics (but we repeat ourselves). Amid continued rants over the “recession that wasn’t” (and still isn’t, to date) the Left is intent on pounding the 6.1 percent unemployment rate, which, while accurate and higher than last year’s five-percent rate, actually equals the nation’s average unemployment rate for the past 38 years.

Still, Democrats in Congress are already pushing for a second $50-billion stimulus package. Did we point out that the unemployment rate really started going up after the first stimulus package?
Mark Alexander - Patriot Post.US

www.minimumwage.com

Wow that link pretty much says it all - thanks Erik!

Wait wait let me guess that year...... 3415! am i right? Close? Kinda Close? No but seriously. They are? After all that last one didnt make an inch of difference. However i was sure to spend it on the econemy! I hired 20 immigrants to mow my lawn, roof my house, clean my house, pick some weeds, and water my plants and i still only spent 25 bucks!

by they i mean the stimulus packages.

THIS JUST IN.

America is not the only country having economy problems right now. In fact the MAJORITY of global economies are seeing a slowdown or recession. Kinda hard to blame it all on our leader at this point in time especially after witnessing the surprising resilience and improvement after 9.11

Just to play devils advocate for a second here, the reason most of the troubled economies in the world are in trouble is because of the fact that they are dependent on the USA for exports. Asia in particular is extremely dependent on the USA. If our economy is in trouble there biggest buyer is in trouble. The only way they can start doing better is if they start looking inward for customers. 1.3 billion people is a much bigger market than your going to find in the US china. And also the fact that other countries are in trouble doesn't detract from the fact that our country's problems affect us more than other country's problems. Your using the old saying "Everybody's doing it". That doesn't mean we should stop trying to fix our country that just means that there country's are suffering as well. This is coming from a guy who voted for bush both times and would gladly do so again so im not just some typical unhappy internet democrat (Im your typical unhappy internet republican) i just think that the point you made is a little... irrelevant to the issues at hand.