Debate
Well, it’s nice that we actually got to have a debate tonight.
Gut reactions: on a topic where most people probably expected John McCain to do well, Barack Obama held his own and then some. As much as McCain tried to insist that Obama was naieve, I thought Obama came off as fairly polished and well-versed. During the economic half, Obama listed real policy plans, as opposed to McCain’s angry rattling off of tired campaign talking points–at times it almost felt like McCain was giving a stump speech rather than participating in a debate (especially with that ridiculously creepy smile). Jim Lehrer kept repeating that the two should be talking to each other, and Obama certainly seemed to be doing a better job of that.
If you watched CNN, they had this little graph at the bottom of the screen where the posted real-time reactions from focus groups of self-identified Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. The blue and red lines stayed where you would have expected them to, but Obama hit really high marks with independents the vast majority of comments while McCain tanked every time he mentioned the war (and then some).
All in all, coming off of his ridiculous suspension stunt McCain needed a big win, but he didn’t get it.
Also, I think it’s time for someone to beam Jim Lehrer back up to the mothership. Seriously, the guy looks like an alien sometimes.
Update: Just to clarify, I think Lehrer did an excellent job moderating. No 30-second limits or shouting down the candidate. He tried to let the two candidates go back and forth as much as possible (you know, like a debate) and kept himself on the sidelines, as the moderator should be. So my above comment was not a critique of Lehrer’s moderation–on the contrary, it should be emulated for the rest of the debates.
RSS Feed
Comments on this post closed 14 days after it was posted.