So tonight all we’re really hoping for is to see John McCain go crazy-nuts and/or talk about Bill Ayers like it’s a big deal so Obama can rightly mock the shit out of him, aren’t we?
8:47: Bill Bennett is blathering about Ayers already and saying he can’t be sure that Obama won’t nominate Ayers to be Secretary of Education. Why doesn’t someone just put a slot machine just off-camera so we don’t have to listen to this fat idiot?
8:51: Soledad O’Brien, despite having a wonderful bi-ethnic name, is still pretty much just your average level of Network TV White when you get right down to it.
8:54: Once again, the lines will represent undecided voters in Ohio, a state currently polling pro-Obama by four to six points, so it’s not really all that undecided as undecided states go. Why not have lines for North Carolina or Missouri instead? Oh, right, they’re not “battleground” states, they’re just states that Obama is leading in that are traditionally Republican.
8:57: The CNN people say that the Clintons and their voters are fully on board with Barack Obama. CNN’s official motto: “duh.”
8:58: Also, Bill Bennett looks disgruntled to have to sit next to Donna Brazile. Just saying. “It’s not over!” he says. Yes, treating McCain like the Buffalo Bills in the second half of a Super Bowl is exactly what undecided voters want to hear.
9:00: Your moderator: Bob Schieffer of CBS News, who is older than God or The New York Times or both. This is the domestic policy debate! Modified wimpy Lincoln/Douglas style rules! And here are Ba Rock and the old guy.
9:02: The lines are edging upwards as Bob asks about their economic plans. Undecided voters just love hearing about plans! McCain sends a shout out to poor dying Nancy Reagan then says that people are hurting and angry. The lines concur. His esses are whistling like a parody of a old man, like a sketch on Hee Haw or something. HE IS AGING BEFORE OUR VERY EYES! Well, yes, everybody is, but still.
9:05: Obama loves the fine people of New York. He talks about ending outsourcing tax credits and his middle class tax cut (which he says so often it should really be one word, like “middleclasstaxcut”). Lines drop when he says he agrees with McCain on anything, although they jump back up when he says “but he’s wrong about this and this.”
9:07: McCain, rather than ask a question, asks Obama about a plumber he met who would be in a higher tax (whistle) bracket under Obama’s (whistle) plan. Lines are not down, but not high. Obama responds by saying that McCain is full of shit and wants to give tax cuts to rich people. Middleclasstaxcut. McCain accuses Obama of being a dirty wealth-redis-(whistle)-tributing socialist. The lines like this. Obama: 95 percent of Americans get a middleclasstaxcut. He points out that Joe the Plumber makes more than $250,000 a year and guess what, Joe is fucking rich and can go screw. Well, not quite, but.
9:13: McCain talks dishonestly about business tax rates in America being too high, knowing perfectly well that business (whistle) tax (whistle) rates (whistle) in America realistically are next to nothing thanks to loopholes in the tax scheme. Obama doesn’t get a chance to respond because it’s time for the next question.
9:14: What will you cut because of the massive deficit? Obama points out that the $750 billion rescue package offers the chance to let Americans get their money back, thanks to the way it was redesigned by Democrats. Obama says he’s a supporter of pay-as-you-go budgeting and promises to go through the budget with a fine-toothed comb, then says he thinks in the long term and America has to spend money to make money in the long term, and people have to be responsible. Lines love that shit.
9:16: McCain wants to talk about home owners-(whistle)-hip and how Hillary Clinton proposed it during the dying, desperate days of her campaign. Old Man Bob wants McCain to actually talk about what he would cut. McCain spits out a bunch of energy words like it means something, then says he is all for a spending freeze because it’s a hatchet and then he can cut more. Man-lines are OFF THE CHART for this shit, seriously. He knows (whistle) how to save billions (whistle). Goes to his standard lines about Obama being a spendy guy and the planetarium projector again.
9:19: Obama is being too reasonable, frankly, when he talks about earmarks and how cutting them won’t solve anything. Mentions Bush and his spending spree, which gets some good play on the lines. These lines are, frankly, not nearly so pro-Obama as the last few sets of lines have been.
9:20: “Can you balance the budget in four years?” McCain: yes (whistle) and I’m not Pres (whistle) ident Bush (whistle). Then attacks Obama again for spending money! McCain then explains that he can create jobs and stimulate the economy by eliminating spending, which is functionally retarded and contrary to all evidence ever.
9:22: Obama points out that he voted for tort reform and performance pay for teachers and clean coal technology, so yes, Mr. McCain, he can support stupid-ass policies just like you can. McCain has this weird, weird grin. Goes back to the “you support Bush way too much” well, and I am starting to suspect, vis-a-vis the lines, that the well is dry.
9:24: McCain brags about his climate change bill, the one he brought to the floor – then took his name off of and voted against. Oh, wait, he doesn’t mention that bit.
9:25: It’s the “why is your campaign so mean” question! Old Man Bob dares them to say shit to each other’s faces. McCain: Obama didn’t do town halls (whistle) with me and so I didn’t have a choice (whistle). Obama is smiling, and I get the feeling he really, really wanted McCain to say just that. McCain then attacks John Lewis for saying that McCain and Palin are shitheads. McCain asks Obama to repudiate those remarks (whistle) just like he’s done for all the nasty things Republicans have said (HA HA HA HA HA). Goes to the “he said he’d take public financing” attack (WHAT) and accuses Obama of lying.
9:28: Obama: two-thirds of America thinks you’re running a negative campaign and one hundred percent of your ads are negative. (McCain, whiny: “That’s not true!”) Obama then slams McCain for the stupid town hall argument because it’s, you know, retarded. Obama goes after McCain for his campaign saying they didn’t want to talk about the economy and more or less calls McCain out. Lines like that. McCain whines that Obama is attacking his health care plan and his immigration policy. Lines like THAT too. Joe the Plumber again.
9:31: McCain whines again about John Lewis. Obama responds by saying in his calm way that McCain’s supporters are shitheads and he’s not John Lewis so shut the fuck up. Lines like it when Obama goes positive. McCain keeps trying to interrupt like a whiny little shithead.
9:33: McCain is proud of the people who come to his rallies (whistle) and gets all defensive about his supporters being assholes because they are the salt of the earth. Obama’s lines drop staggeringly for a bit until he starts talking about positive solutions. He rightly says vigorous debates about issues are fine.
9:36: McCain says he doesn’t care about Bill Ayers and ACORN, but he cares a lot about Bill Ayers and ACORN and Obama has to justify and explain himself. Obama responds about Ayers much as you expect and the lines are middlingish to high. On ACORN, Obama explains that he has next to no association with them, then talks about the impressive people he DOES associate with, and the women-lines at least pretty much like this. McCain accuses Obama of more association with Ayers and ACORN, and – wonder of wonders – the lines start dropping!
9:40: Old Man Bob wants to know why the country would be better off if each candidate’s Veep became President, as is possible? Obama: Joe Biden is awesome and also not an insane bitch. (No, not really, but wouldn’t that be great?) Also, middleclasstaxcut and all the rest. Lines love them some Biden, because it’s nice that the black man is talking about an old white guy. McCain talks about Palin and the lines drop back down harshly. Men, unsurprisingly, like McCain’s bullshit about Palin a lot more than women do. Sarah Palin understands special needs children, too!
9:43: Obama: it’s up to the American people if Palin is qualified to be President, which is a nice way to say “no.” Obama then points out that helping special needs children kind of falls by the wayside when you want a spending freeze. McCain: I like Joe Biden but he’s wrong about everything and a s-(whistle)-tupid-head. Then attacks McCain for his s-(whistle)-pending ways, and openly lies once again about Obama’s tax policy, because that’s who McCain is.
9:46: Climate change and energy! How much can America reduce foreign oil consumption during your first term? McCain: we can get rid of all of it, except for Canadian oil by building nuclear plants, which you can build in four years easy (god, is he stupid or just ignorant?). Then changes his mind and says it can be done in seven to ten years. Obama agrees on the ten year figure, saying it’s a realistic timeframe, restating his belief that this is THE issue. (Lines like that.) Says that the oil companies should drill the areas they have leased already or they can go pound sand (hooray). Says that American cars are crap, lines like that too. Then talks about free trade and how it didn’t have enforceable agreements, and speaking as a Canadian let me just say any American whining about NAFTA needs to go shut the fuck up really fast even if it is Obama, all right?
9:51: McCain basically calls Obama a shifty-tongued liar, then accuses Obama of being against free trade with South America and Colombia and fighting drugs and so forth, and oh man is McCain getting more hostile with each passing minute. Obama coolly responds that the United States has to stand for human rights and Colombia shoots labor leaders, so fuck you, Johnny Mac. Also: fuel-efficient cars of the future! (Lines LOVE future cars. He probably should have mentioned jetpacks.)
9:55: McCain attacks Obama on the preconditions thing, lines drop back down to earth. The lines seem to be regaining what I will call, for lack of a better term, “sanity.” Then compares Obama to Herbert Hoover. Yes. REALLY.
9:56: Generic vague healthcare question! Obama: lower costs, increase spending! My plan will do nothing to change everything you like and fix most of what you hate! The lines LOVE things that they like and hate things that they hate! McCain: bunch of health-related things that would be good (and require spending, but in McCainland things John McCain likes just kind of appear, like fine summer rain). Hey, Joe the Plumber! Obama will fine you if you don’t cover your kids! Man-lines like this attack. Women-lines do not. And then he goes to the single-payer system attack! THANK YOU JOHN MCCAIN FOR ATTACKING SOCIALIZED MEDICINE.
10:00: Obama: Hey, dumbass, I exempted small businesses so there’s no fine. Explains how his healthcare plan helps small businesses. McCain looks uncomfortable. Then Obama starts trashing the shit out of McCain’s incredibly bad plan, pointing out that old people are going to suck pipe on the McCain plan. McCain looks more uncomfortable. Obama finishes up by attacking McCain for taxing healthcare benefits and his idea about deregulating health coverage. The lines are very happy about this.
10:03: McCain: “Joe, you’re rich! Congratulations!” Hey, if Joe makes $250,000 a year, dumbass, he is pretty fucking well off.
10:04: McCain’s healthcare lines are not good at all. This is very much the definitive lines moment for Obama tonight.
10:06: Roe v. Wade and judges? They’re actually talking about it? Holy shit. McCain: I would not impose a litmus (whistle) test (whistle) and avoids talking about how he would appoint crazy right-wing judges like he’s said he would do again and again. Attacks Obama for voting against Roberts and Stephen Breyer, who is, you know, a Clinton appointee. MCCAIN IS A DODDERING OLD TWAT.
10:08: McCain doubletalks to get around the facts on his judicial preferences some more. Obama says he supports Roe and that women should have a right to choose, then talks about right to privacy and how it has to be federally protected. Lines like this. Turns out that former law professors are good at talking about the law in a concise, easy to explain manner! Who would have thunk. Then – get this – he explains in short terms Ledbetter v. Goodyear! Holy shit, that impresses me. Bringing up this sort of thing in a debate is fucking ballsy.
10:12: McCain attacks Obama on other pro-life grounds. Women are not happy about this. He accuses Obama of aligning himself with the “extreme pro-abortion” movement in America. Obama says Mccain is a liar. McCain looks like he is passing bad gas. Obama explains that he’s fine with late-term abortion bans where there’s a medical exemption, which McCain opposes. Concludes by arguing that surely everybody can agree that making unintended pregnancies rarer is great. (Lines LOVE THIS SHIT. Topping out.) McCain fucking explodes, he’s so angry now.
10:16: Old Man Bob speaks! Education! Why does it suck and how will you make it gooder, sirs? Obama immediately frames education as a national security issue, then says America needs more spending and reform. McCain has another weird look on his face like he is pooping. The lines are skyrocketing for Obama’s education points. Finally, Obama says parents have to turn off the TV and put away the videogames and so forth, because personal responsibility is the shit.
10:19: McCain explains that schools are all equal now, because he knows nobody black is voting for him anyway so he can just bullshit about this all he likes. Talks about charter schools, because free enterprise competition blah blah blah success-cakes. Then says hey, maybe certification isn’t such a big deal anyhow! Heh. Lines are good but not as good as Obama’s.
10:20: Federal involvement in schools! Obama: we need more money in schools! Then he attacks No Child Left Behind and lack of special-needs funding and other things like that. Talks about charter schools, because he has to have some bad ideas too or else he would be too good for this Earth. Then attacks McCain for his tax policy again through rhetorical judo, pointing out that spending freezes don’t mean spending more on education like McCain wants.
10:23: McCain praises No Child Left Behind, which is… just dumb, really. Then he says Head Start needs reforming, and special needs kids – hey, Sarah Palin! Obama points out that McCain doesn’t actually have an education policy, and McCain makes a snide joke because that is all the senile prick can do.
10:27: Closing statements! McCain: America needs (whistle) a new direction and I take on special interests (whistle) and I don’t like spending and we have to do six billion things but we can’t spend any money on it. (The lines like this, because undecided voters love it when you promise to do magic for free.) McCain puts his country first (whistle).
10:29: Obama: We need fundamental change in America, and it’s me or the crazy old man, and I have the distinct advantage of not being crazy or old. Also, energy education middleclasstaxcut. America needs to renew the spirit of sacrifice and community, which is another thing a crazy old man cannot do.
And that’s it. McCain does some crazy old man hand jive right afterwards as he stands up, presumably to make the tired old blood flow. The potential First Ladies show up to shake hands and so forth.
On points: more or less a tie, slightly a win for Obama, I think, who picked up steam in the second half. McCain was much stronger than he was in previous debates, but that whistling – man, if I wrote for SNL I would be making fun of that like nobody’s business, and I think it made McCain look more like a crazy old man.
And in a tie, I think Obama wins on points.
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53 users responded in this post
Slot machines don’t work. The man’s game is video poker.
I have no idea why I remember that.
Ok, Spain won and Chile is winning so I’m ready to watch Obama beat McCain.
I’m thinking the first (well, 27th or so, technically) season of Doctor Who is more appealing. I love me DVD collections.
Go get ’em MGK! π
“like the Buffalo Bills in the second half of a Super Bowl”
Awwww…a low blow, sir. A low blow. π
Missouri’s not necessarily Republican –
Man, I hope I don’t mess up the html too badly.
God, that whistling is really fucking annoying.
I read on the local right-wing rag’s website that the Mass Debate was on right now, so I came right here. Why bother listening to the Fresh Prince and Grampa Simpson in real life when I can get it via the greatest dot.snarker in Canadia? Woot!
Oh snap Obama! Wonder what Fox news response will be?
The lines do not like Obama tonight and that upsets me.
With the “negative campaign” question, I fucking wish Obama would turn to that withered old bag and say “Say to my face that I associate with terrorists. Say it.” just to watch McCain shrivel up like a witch under a kansas farmhouse.
Ayer’s O’CLOCK BONG!
McCain’s doing better than usual, but Obama played off Ayers and ACORN well.
Holy Shit did McCain almost say that Palin brought “breasts” to the race?
I would not overestimate the importance of the lines. They are, after all, a wholly unscientific sampling of a very small group of people.
Which is far from me saying “let’s just call this election for Obama and be 100% sure our guy has already won.” That would be overconfidence, and I did it in 2004, and it led to heavy drinking later on and is bad. But I wouldn’t take the lines as gospel, either.
That’s why I’m doing the heavy drinking NOW.
Thanks to this post, I now know what’s happening even though I’m missing it.
John McCain: “Sarah Palin is a role model to women…”
Has he completely cracked, or what? Cripes, and I thought the Canadian election campaign was terrible. Americans, you have my sympathies! I don’t know how you can stand this.
McCain’Ospeak translatotron: “Wind! Solar! Tide! Hydrogen! All things I will completely ignore in favor of killing more brown people in that there other country to get more oil!”
I don’t want Stepford Barbie anywhere near the White House.
Bahaha. Chris, I swear…I laughed out loud at the jetpacks line. Also the insane bitch line. Bahahaha.
McCain is blinking like mad during the health care bit.
That’s right you doddering old Mr.Magoo looking fart, dance. Dance around the fact that you’re going to tax employer health benefits. Try to pretend that you’re not going to fuck a majority of working people in this country over.
Why is it that I’m no longer outraged by lies and instead find them horrifyingly funny?
McCain isn’t just lying, he’s repeating his old, refuted lies!
Athene: We deal with it with LOTS AND LOTS OF GIN. LOTS AND LOTS AND…
I had just said that McCain looked, during Obama’s abortion discussion, like he was passing SBDs.
@syringavulgaris: I prefer Midori, or some Smirnoff Ice. Gin really isn’t my taste. π
I kind of wish the Obama campaign had insisted on a zap sent to McCain everytime he interrupted…
Gotta say that I love that you’re doing this, MGK.
Obama was on the defense at first, but he finished well.
“I support the Troops to Teachers program” (yay?) “and we should be able to have our troops just teach without having to take all of those exams and get certified to teach” (WHAT.)
Obama: “Under my plan, Joe would pay ZERO in fines, because I have an exeption for small business!” (McCain looks confused, slightly shocked, and uncomfortable.) McCain a few minutes later: “…and Senator Obama would make Joe pay a fine for not providing health care to his workers!” DUDE. Talk about not listening! Or just ignoring and restating your talking points and hoping that the public won’t catch on that you just restated something that your opponent schooled you on.
Ooh, the abortion section was unnnnnnncomfortable. Yikes.
Oh, and I give myself props, because I predicted a full NINETY SECONDS AHEAD OF TIME that McCain would bring back Joe the Plumber during the whole healthcare portion of the debate.
This is the thing that’s hurting McCain. He’s not just lying. He’s repeating lies SECONDS after they get refuted. That goes beyond misinformation and into some kind of postmodern existential questioning of the underlying nature of reality.
Ok, McCain’s face when Obama talked about killings of union leaders in Colombia (much of it very much connected to Black Water, and american oil — and other — interests. Not mentioned the farm workers killed so their lands can be taken away etc etc)… I’m really looking foward for this disgusting little shit to fuck off.
And, GODDAMN!, Obama fucked the abortion issue in the ass! It loved it and it didn’t leave it pregnant!
And, fuck, all that Joe talk was so creepy.
I bet every Joe felt soiled tonight.
When Obama laughed off the Ayers accusations and then McCain started melting down over acorn? That was awesomejuice.
You didn’t write about the best part! At the end, when McCain sticks his tongue out for no reason, crazy-old-man-style!
I didn’t catch that Obama mentioned that 100% of McCain’s ads were negative. In fact, I thought he should’ve brought it up and missed a great opportunity.
Of course, during the abortion discussion, I was kinda expecting Obama would say something along the lines of: “Now, just a few minutes ago Senator McCain was expressing that a fundamental difference between us is that, according to him, I think that government should make your choices, and he believes that you should make your own choices. But I support a woman’s right to choose, and Senator McCain believes that the government should make that choice for you.”
And great googly-moogly, what is up with McCain’s belief that he can pay for better schooling (rewarding teachers and what-not), give $5000 to every American for health care, perform research on autism, and not pay for any of it because of his spending freeze? It’s… I… usually I can step into someone else’s worldview and see how it’s internally consistent, but this? Does he believe that elves are going to do the autism research in our sleep and get our kids into charter schools, along with cobbling our shoes, or something? Really, what the hell is up with that?
Also, since I missed the first reference to Joe the plumber, I thought that when McCain started talking to “Joe” he was talking to Joe Biden. Or was possibly going senile on live tv.
Ah. I voted on Monday. So technically my work is done. Of course I now live in Chicago, which means that even if I had not voted for Obama? I would have voted for Obama.
I appreciate the recap. It made me feel better about my decision to watch the end of the truly awful Indiana Jones IV, instead of having an McCain induced annurism.
Plus: McCain? Is the one who is friend of the terrorists. Er, Cuban Exile Groups, who mysteriously stopped advocating the violent overthrow of all people related to the Cuban government on September 12 2008. But spent every moment before that blowing shit up.
My 12-year-old sister was like, “Joe… Biden? Joe Sixpack? Which Joe are we talking about here, exactly?” She is made of win.
McCain is like if Gopher from Winnie the Pooh turned into a real person, only not in the cool way where you and Tigger have crazy antics, in the way that makes you horrified that Pooh is a morbidly obese idiot savant and that Piglet is the little old cat lady/man that you suspect may be a child molester/cannibal. The only cool one would be Eeyore, and only because he is a happy drunk. Just like that. Goddamn whistling…
I also would like to point out that having anyone be a teacher who has not had to pass tests and be certified is a Bad Idea, especially when pushing a fiscal plan for the education system dependent solely on passing tests. Seriously, I’ve been to some crappy schools, but No Child Left Behind has really fucked over the schools, students, and teachers that don’t have money and resources.
Obama + the Jetsons = AMAZING
I lived in a poor neighborhood almost all my life and every school available was complete shit with the possible exception for the charter schools. I was lucky enough to get 3 years in the last good public school before they closed it and sold it. I’d like to hear about why charter schools are such a bad idea.
Man, I love reading your live blogging on the debates.
Obama looked presidential. McC’s face looked like a pumpkin with all the colour bleached out of it.
I think charter schools and a voucher program for private schools failing that is a great idea; I don’t have a financial background, though, and I admit to not researching these issues particularly recently. I also believe that more money for public schools to be not suck is badass.
When you’re stuck in a shit school, getting out of it is amazing. I usually just got out whenever it was time for us to move out of the area again, or most recently by graduating shortly after getting to the area. Admittedly, public school is not a major issue for me because I’m not in K-12 and my younger sisters who are have already gotten through most of the ride.
Basically, the reason vouchers are a bad idea is that they rest on a really obvious wrong-headed idea, that the amount of money we spend on education can be divided up on a kid-by-kid basis. Thinking about it for even a minute makes it clear that it’s wrong; I live in Minnesota. In January, when the kids are in school, having half the kids doesn’t mean your heating bill is half as big. Vouchers drain needed money from the public school system, ensuring that the remaining kids will have even a harder time getting a good education.
Meanwhile, all the evidence shows that private schools don’t have a better track record educating kids than public schools; their success rate seems better, but only because they don’t have to take in underperforming kids. If you can simply exclude C or worse-students from walking through your doors, of course you’re going to have kids with B averages or better.
When you boil it down, vouchers are all about taking money away from the public school system, where there’s oversight and accountability, and giving it to private schools that are only held accountable by market forces. And we’ve seen that work so well for the airlines, the S&Ls, the subprime mortgage market…
Oh, yes, and getting to the actual comment I wanted to make before I got sidetracked by the comments section π , McCain managed to single-handedly negate the political benefit of having a mother of a special-needs child on the ticket by a) saying that Palin, with a four-month-old, knew more about special needs than anyone (any parent of a Downs Syndrome child will tell you that four months is way too soon to notice a difference in their developmental curve) and b) confusing Downs Syndrome with autism.
Vouchers don’t work because instead of dealing with WHY the school is shit, the kids with motivated parents get to leave while the rest get fucked even more badly. Kids getting fucked = bad.
McCain sounded like a tea pot half the time.
Charter schools suck because they can select to take in only the motivated and smart kids (even if they have a lottery entrance system, they can still make sure they only get the “good” kids by emphasizing work and having parents willing to go through the process and so on) while the public schools have to take everybody. So yes, you do end up with some good charter schools, but the public schools just get worse.
The men in this focus group who controlled the man-lines all seemed to be very stupid and McCain-y. Boo!
In my particular situation there’s a choice between shit school or sorta OK school. Take away the charter and it’ll be a choice between shit and shit like it was before the charter school showed up.
I was homeschooled from 3rd to 7th grade. After which I decided to try public school again. It was horrible. We spent the entire year going over subject and predicate in English class. We had 6 or 7 different Math teachers during the year. Health class was spent watching movies.
I think charter schools could not do worse. It’s my hope that the competition will help improve all the schools.
and speaking as a Canadian let me just say any American whining about NAFTA needs to go shut the fuck up really fast even if it is Obama, all right?
just curious what you meant by this, MGK.
as an American, I agree that free trade with Canada is a “duh” move, but NAFTA has been devastating for Mexican workers and farmers and, well, the entire country of Mexico in general, not to mention the way that US and Canadian corporations have seized the opportunity to undermine all our regulations or any of the hundreds of other negative consequences that have not been addressed; I think the treaty needs serious pro-labor/pro-environment improvements if it is to continue.
Curses! They cut the “McCain shuffle” from the British broadcast of this.
goblin: It’s because of a recent disagreement in which America taxed imported softwood lumber from Canada by about 27%. Which is not free trade.
In the end, because America refused to pay up except with some sort of deal, Canadians only got back 80% of the duty charged by the American border, and Canada is permanently limited to 34% of the US softwood lumber market.
Canada lost over a billion dollars to US tariffs which NAFTA ruled to be disallowed. Clearly free trade at it’s best.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/softwood_lumber/
… And that is why Americans are not allowed to whine about NAFTA, because they don’t abide by it if they can, anyway.
The best way to improve the public school systems (where they need improving — some jurisdictions have very good public systems, but nobody spends any time bitching about them on the internet) is to spend the money and take the time to improve them.
The best way to make a bad school system even worse is to undermine it by draining out the motivated/lucky students and slashing their budgets.
This is not rocket science.
Public officials should be forced to send their kids to public schools for the same reason that they should be forced to have the level of healthcare of the least insured of their constituents.