I was listening to the debate on radio, so that was particularly noticeable. He sounded like he’d just run a mile to get to the debate.
For this being McCain’s forte (the town hall style) it really was an ass-kicking, in every sense of the word. Physically, McCain was just creepy for the first half, looming in the background most of the time. At one point, you could see him behind Obama looking off camera at someone, making a sort of downward motion with his hands, and then appeared to get the message that he shouldn’t skulk around in the background, because he tended to do so less as the debate went on.
I think the “that one” comment will be the most remembered comment, and not to McCain’s benefit. He certainly helped to perpetuate the image of himself as an angry old man.
On the issues, Obama dominated, hands down.
On the dynamics, I think it was Obama’s strategy to take control in order to challenge McCain, and I think it was a risk, but it paid off. I thought one of his most successful moments was on challenging McCain on the we-won’t-violate-Pakistan’s-border issue. Not only did he take the opportunity to smack down McCain’s suggestion that McCain speaks softly, but he got to focus the conversation for twice as long on what is really a stupid position of McCain. That was clear in the little trend line thing - it was completely flat when McCain was trying to sell his position. Nobody at all buys that position - not even Palin. Good strategy for Obama to make McCain step in the dogshit twice.
What a bad night for McCain. Good night, fucker.
Unfortunately, Obama made a comment that he is “just trying to keep up with” McCain. I thought that was a bad one, but his back was to the camera, so maybe the McCain won’t use it in their ads, but I can see the ad now.
FWIW, I just saw a McCain ad that was the most fear-mongering thing I’d ever seen, and brought up points that have been clearly fact checked as not as he is portraying them. Example: Air raiding in Afghanistan killing civilians and villages, that was proven to be a true and accurate statement by Obama.
He referred to Obama as a near inanimate object, condescended to Oliver, and forgot the name of Ingrid. Strange how it’s the black people he can’t quite connect with.
Jesus, what a wonkfest. That was painful.
I think McCain did relatively well on most of the answers where he actually, you know, answered (particularly during the foreign policy phase of the proceedings), stumbled badly on most of the shots he tried to take at the O-man, and I agree that he looked shockingly tired and wobbly.
Obama won on sincerity, or the simulation thereof: I bought his explanation of his tax plans far more than McCain’s claims about them. He lost a couple of points with me for filibustering, but the really crappy format was somewhat to blame. Answer complex questions on domestic and foreign policy in tweo minutes, with no follow-up? Puh-lease.
Biggest snicker of the night: after reading the Rolling Stone article linked to in another thread, and its description of the incident where he sliced through a power cable in Spain with his jet, McCain solemnly intoning how responsibly he behaved during his military career.
CBS:
Who won?
McCain ® 27
Obama (D) 39
Draw 35
You oughta check out what it is that they are suggesting were fact-stretchers. Some of them are complete bullshit.
The mainstream media still is not free and clear of the need for false equivalence.
Seems reasonable, although I would have given McCain a higher score.
I meant to add in my summary that Obama also stayed in the room long after McCain did, talking to people, shaking their hands and listening to them. Begala pointed out how politically smart and Clintonesque this was. He noted that these people, the audience members, are going to be interviewed, and what they have to say about the candidates’ behavior in the room and their concern about the voters’ issues will matter.
Some of what Obama said may be little more than stretches, but how difficult is it to be accurate? So, the Iraqis have $29 billion in the bank instead of $79 billion. Why not say that? $29 billion is still a heck of a lot of money holed up in an account gathering interest when we’re spending $10 billion a month.
I didn’t take offense at this. I think McCain clearly meant to say something along the lines of “Do you know which Senator voted for this bill? That one. <points at Obama>”. It came off as disrespectful without the “Senator”, but the intent seemed fairly clear – McCain was talking about a bill in the Senate, and which Senators voted for it or didn’t. He left out an honorific when he shouldn’t have. I’ll give him a break.
I was at the gym and Faux news was doing their after-debate coverage. Lots of bull shit there, of course, but their poll showed something like 87% thought McCain won, and 12% thought Obama one. Tie apparently wasn’t an option.
Here’s a recap of some more of the instapolls:
That may very well be what he meant. I don’t think there was anything about his tone or demeanor that would be consistent with the idea that he wasn’t being angry and snarky and rude, however, and he didn’t say Senator.
Perhaps he stepped on his own dick - too bad for him.
Regarding taxes on difficult times, this bit makes McCain sound clueless:
IMHO I would not said that it led, but I still think the Right Wing in America hated Clinton because he showed that raising taxes does not cause or worsen a recession.
The format sucked. They wanted to go at each other but the 1 min limit screwed it up. The McCain remark of calling Obama "this one here " was bad mojo. It will play big on black areas.
They both are wrong on Pakistan, economy and health care. I think I will vote for Nader.
It was $79B til the stock market crashed 
Fox (and I’m not making it up)
McCain ® 80
Obama (D) 12
Undecided (?) 8
Win the debate or the election?
I think that winning the election is only in doubt for Obama because he is black and many white voters may make that a factor in the voting booth. White people still have a lot of racism. I’m white, middle aged and male. People say the darnedest things in front of me because they think I might agree with them. I’ve been very gratified to see how the polls are going, but I remember two elections in California where Tom Bradley ran against George Dukemejian and he was ahead on the polls for both elections but lost handily.
Hahaha! FOX is such a joke. I’m sure most of the respondents to the FOX poll would have given the same answer even if they hadn’t watched the debate.