10/7 Presidential Debate

[gambit]

At least McCain can pronounce "nuclear" correctly.

[dubman]

Originally Posted by kagenaki koe

yes. in a way McCain is just giving you the headline, Obama is telling you the actual article. that's the best analogy i can come up with.

good. i'm sensing people getting a wee bit tired of non-answers in the debate, and due to the royal mess we're in, are actually looking for someone who can DEFINE things.
i'm also thinking on a tangeant that mccains tack of spending all his cash on attack ads are going to get exhausting. you can be the "all-balls" candidate on war because it's (falsely) seen as needing someone who can see in black and white to do the right thing. but people know the economy is complicated, and it wont make people any smarter overall, but i bet they'll be looking more for who SOUNDS smarter than they usually do.

[gambit]

Well, that was a bit of a mess. I'm obviously biased, but Obama came across a bit better in how he spoke.

[kagenaki koe]

McCain lobbying for Georgia again.

[kagenaki koe]

there was too much rinse repeat stump speech answers/attacks from McCain even for newer questions in this debate. too many "i know what it's like" just like his end statement"

[cured]

I wish McCain was just STFU about Iraq. The vast majority of this country does not support that war and wants to get out and he keeps beating on the drum that we'll leave when we feel like it. And he hammers Obama about stating that he'd invade an ally. Pakistan hasn't done shit for us, they disengaged themselves from the militant areas to save their own skins.

[kagenaki koe]

i'd say they were both fairly even at the first third or half of the debate, and Obama (not following the format and launching more counterpoints) got better during the rest of the debate. it also didnt help that when McCain decided to also have time to launch into his own counterargument, he just went back to "i know how" schlock which didnt even address Obama's point.

well the first 2 debates are supposed to favor McCain (foreign policy, then town hall format) and he failed to really dominate in both.

[chuck]

dammit - missed this one. was at school

Sullivan reckons Obama cleaned up.

10.33 pm. This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I've watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out.It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don't really see how the McCain campaign survives this.

[cured]

Chuck, I read the Daily Dish every 15 minutes. It's funny to think the guy was once a Bush apologist but I agree with his takes on just about everything. I don't think this was an Obama mauling...certainly Obama got the better of the more specific, detailed exchanges but otherwise it was really just another stage for them to recycle their stump speeches on. That's bad for McCain...he really needed to win this town hall tonight and he did not. He is probably going to cement his loss in Florida and possibly lose more ground in Ohio after this one. A conservative co-worker of mine said he felt this contest was over after we found out what we've found out about Palin. He thinks it'll be a landslide victory for Obama.

[Troy McClure]

I thought it was fairly even when looking at the debate only. But since it's only a month left in the process, McCain lost. Obama scored big points with me when he answered the early question about how the bailout is supposed to free up the credit freeze going on. Simple and concise. McCain still couldn't control himself in making smart-ass quips. Stuff like that doesn't work when McCain says he has a steady hand.

Jason