Who won the debate?

[Rex Kickass]

So who won the debate?

[HuskyCaucasian]

McCain, he said so this morning in his web ads. So it must be true.

In all honesty, for the chunks that I saw this evening, it's a draw.

 

Obama needed to hold his own, and I think he did that. So, you could say he was the winner... but I call it a draw.

Edited September 27, 2008 by Athomeboy_2000

[HuskyCaucasian]

CBS says Obama "held his own" on McCain's foreign policy turf. "Obama stayed right with him."

Edited September 27, 2008 by Athomeboy_2000

[lostfan]

Unfortunately I haven't watched it yet since I was at my mother in law's birthday party. I was told by my friend giving me text updates that nothing groundbreaking happened, and if you were a Republican you'll like McCain and think Obama is full of it and vice versa.

[HuskyCaucasian]

I was told by my friend giving me text updates that nothing groundbreaking happened

Pretty much. Obama has the soundbite though. His "The war didnt start in 2007" and "you were wrong" segment was pretty good.

 

John you like to pretend like the war began in 2007. You talk about the surge -- the war started in 2003. And at the time when the war started, you said it was gonna be easy, you said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were, you were wrong. You said that we were gonna be treated as liberators. You were wrong. You said there was no history of violence between Shia and Sunni. And you were wrong.

 

And so the question is the judgment of whether or not -- if the question is, who is equipped as the next president to make good decisions about how we use our military , how we make sure that we are prepared and ready for the next conflict, then I think we can take a look at our judgment.

Edited September 27, 2008 by Athomeboy_2000

[EvilMonkey]

Pretty much. Obama has the soundbite though. His "The war didnt start in 2007" and "you were wrong" segment was pretty good.

'It's hard to reach across the aisle from that far left' was pretty good as well.

[HuskyCaucasian]

CBS Uncommitted Voter Poll: Who Won the Debate?

McCain 22%

Obama: 40%

Tie: 38%

 

In a "McCain Turf" debate... only 22% think he won. That isnt good for him.

Edited September 27, 2008 by Athomeboy_2000

[DrunkBomber]

Obama won the debate if it was against George Bush. Thats all he really has on McCain in this department.

 

As far as good line go, I also liked, What are you going to do, have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sitting across the table from you, have him say hes going to blow Israel off the map and say, oh no youre not?

[HuskyCaucasian]

Obama won the debate if it was against George Bush. Thats all he really has on McCain in this department.

 

As far as good line go, I also liked, What are you going to do, have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sitting across the table from you, have him say hes going to blow Israel off the map and say, oh no youre not?

McCain couldnt even say Ahmadinejad's name. that was pretty funny. Took him 3 or 4 tries to get it right.

[DrunkBomber]

McCain couldnt even say Ahmadinejad's name. that was pretty funny. Took him 3 or 4 tries to get it right.

Who can

[HuskyCaucasian]

Who can

I prefer Leno's "mahmoud I'm-a-nut-job"

[Rex Kickass]

I think McCain sounded angry and cranky at times. I think he did well with his base but poorly with independents. I think Obama did better with independents but didn't turn in any earth shaking moments either. But kind of boring and long winded. I don't think he can whittle down to the simple answers that I think that this was more of a draw overall. Tie goes to the leader in these situations.

 

However, what you think tonight, may not be the common wisdom tomorrow or in three days. People thought Gore and Kerry schooled Bush in their debates the night of, a couple days later it didn't seem that way.

[lostfan]

Ok, I'm about done watching it. McCain pretty much talked down to Obama the whole time, he kept saying "what Obama doesn't seem to understand is..." but Obama held his ground, and got a couple good burns in there. Seems like a draw to me.

[whitesoxfan101]

I just watched it, and nothing of real note or relevance happened in my opinion. Both sides stuck to their cliches and soundbites, and came off just as you expected. Nothing changed as a result of this debate, unless I clearly missed something.

[Jenksismyhero]

Considering he said his name about 10 times, he made one mistake - that's pretty good in my book. I thought it was funnier that Obama called McCain Jim and Joe-er-n.

 

I honestly think McCain won slightly. I give him a 55-45. I was expecting Obama to make McCain look like a tired old man, but really he came off as very intelligent and knowledgable. He dropped a lot of names and a lot of stories about his experience. If you were truly on the fence, you'd have to say that you learned more about McCain than Obama. Obama basically rehashed his convention speech (as did McCain, but some of the detailed experience he talked about was new).

 

My big thing is that the media seems to think that Obama merely had to show up and prove he could belong. What does that mean? He did nothing to show the country HOW he would lead or HOW he would make decisions - he gave a bunch of generic political talk. Did the media expect him to completely fail? I didn't understand what they meant.

 

Weakest moment: Obama's "i have a bracelet too!" line. Really? Was that necessary?

 

McCain spent too much time rehashing what he had just said. If I were him, next time I'd make my point once or twice and then just stop talking.

 

Also, can a liberal please explain to me this stupid democractic strategy of bringing up the fact that in 2003 we went to war? How does that help Obama at all? "Sen. Obama, can you explain why you still don't think the surge was effective? Sure Jim, but lets talk about a more important issue. Why did we need the surge in the first place?" "Sen. Obama, if you were president, what would you do in Iraq? Well Jim, I'll refuse to answer the question and again mention the fact that McCain is actually Bush III and its his fault that we're in this war."

 

(1) Why refuse to answer a legitimate question about how you came to your decision that the surge was a bad idea and a sure failure (as thats one of a few, if not the only, actual issues that both parties have been able to give opinions on prior to it occuring)? and (2) why continue to pretend like McCain was responsible for managing the war. Ok, we get it, he backed a stupid war and you didn't. Kudos to you. Stop refusing to answer questions about how you would lead the country in this war FROM THIS POINT FORWARD simply by reminding everyone that you didn't agree with the war in the first place.

 

 

Also, kudos to Lehrer for at least TRYING to get those guys to talk about the economy - clearly neither of them want to talk specifics. And I liked that he got them to, ya know, debate.

[bmags]

well, imo, Obama won because it was a draw. This was a foreign policy debate, and McCain didn't win. How telling is that. All McCain did was act like Carmen San Diego all night. And he acted like he wasn't the warhawk that he is.

[The Critic]

I prefer Leno's "mahmoud I'm-a-nut-job"

I call him Mahmoud I'm-a-dinner-tray.

 

Oh, and I thought Obama won. McCain seemed a little scrambled to me.

Edited September 27, 2008 by The Critic

[HuskyCaucasian]

McCain seemed a little scrambled to me.

This is your brain. This is your brain when you get old...

[BigSqwert]

Who can

Colbert

[BigSqwert]

Why Voters Thought Obama Won

 

TPM has the internals of the CNN poll of debate-watchers, which had Obama winning overall by a margin of 51-38. The poll suggests that Obama is opening up a gap on connectedness, while closing a gap on readiness.

 

Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you”. This is a gap that has no doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters. Per the transcript, McCain never once mentioned the phrase “middle class” (Obama did so three times). And Obama’s eye contact was directly with the camera, i.e. the voters at home. McCain seemed to be speaking literally to the people in the room in Mississippi, but figuratively to the punditry. It is no surprise that a small majority of pundits seemed to have thought that McCain won, even when the polls indicated otherwise; the pundits were his target audience.

 

Something as simple as Obama mentioning that he’ll cut taxes for “95 percent of working families” is worth, I would guess, a point or so in the national polls. Obama had not been speaking enough about his middle class tax cut; there was some untapped potential there, and Obama may have gotten the message to sink in tonight

 

By contrast, I don’t think McCain’s pressing Obama on earmarks was time well spent for him. One, it simply is not something that voters care all that much about, given the other pressures the economy faces. But also, it is not something that voters particularly associate with Obama, as the McCain campaign had not really pressed this line of attack. If you’re going to introduce a new line of attack late in a campaign, it has better be a more effective one that earmarks. And then there was McCain's technocratic line about the virtues of lowering corporate taxes, one which might represent perfectly valid economic policy, but which was exactly the sort of patrician argument that lost George H.W. Bush the election in 1992.

 

Meanwhile, voters thought that Obama “seemed to be the stronger leader” by a 49-43 margin, reversing a traditional area of McCain strength. And voters thought that the candidates were equally likely to be able to handle the job of president if elected.

 

These internals are worse for McCain than the topline results, because they suggest not only that McCain missed one of his few remaining opportunities to close the gap with Barack Obama, but also that he has few places to go. The only category in which McCain rated significantly higher than Obama was on “spent more time attacking his opponent”. McCain won that one by 37 points.

 

My other annoyance with the punditry is that they seem to weight all segments of the debate equally. There were eight segments in this debate: bailout, economy, spending, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, terrorism. The pundit consensus seems to be that Obama won the segments on the bailout, the economy, and Iraq, drew the segment on Afghanistan, and lost the other four. So, McCain wins 4-3, right? Except that, voters don’t weight these issues anywhere near evenly. In Peter Hart’s recent poll for NBC, 43 percent of voters listed the economy or the financial crisis as their top priority, 12 percent Iraq, and 13 percent terrorism or other foreign policy issues. What happens if we give Obama two out of three economic voters (corresponding to the fact that he won two out of the three segments on the economy), and the Iraq voters, but give McCain all the “other foreign policy” voters?

 

Issue Priority Obama McCain

Economy 43 --> 29 14

Iraq 12 --> 12 0

Foreign Policy 13 --> 0 13

==========================================

Total 41 27

 

 

By this measure, Obama “won” by 14 points, which almost exactly his margin in the CNN poll.

 

McCain’s essential problem is that his fundamental strength – his experience -- is specifically not viewed by voters as carrying over to the economy. And the economy is pretty much all that voters care about these days.

 

EDIT: The CBS poll of undecideds has more confirmatory detail. Obama went from a +18 on "understanding your needs and problems" before the debate to a +56 (!) afterward. And he went from a -9 on "prepared to be president" to a +21.

Edited September 27, 2008 by BigSqwert

[DrunkBomber]

Obamas idea of middle class is people that make 30k

[BigSqwert]

Obamas idea of middle class is people that make 30k

First of all that's not the case and we don't even know McCain's definition because he's ignored the middle class the entire campaign.

[Reddy]

Obamas idea of middle class is people that make 30k

and... we're supposed to ignore people that make 30k or less? I don't really get your post.

[Rex Kickass]

I honestly think McCain won slightly. I give him a 55-45. I was expecting Obama to make McCain look like a tired old man, but really he came off as very intelligent and knowledgable. He dropped a lot of names and a lot of stories about his experience. If you were truly on the fence, you'd have to say that you learned more about McCain than Obama. Obama basically rehashed his convention speech (as did McCain, but some of the detailed experience he talked about was new).

 

My big thing is that the media seems to think that Obama merely had to show up and prove he could belong. What does that mean? He did nothing to show the country HOW he would lead or HOW he would make decisions - he gave a bunch of generic political talk. Did the media expect him to completely fail? I didn't understand what they meant.

 

Weakest moment: Obama's "i have a bracelet too!" line. Really? Was that necessary?

 

The reason Obama needed to just hold his own is really threefold. He's seen as the weaker debater, so doing well enough is considered winning. That's kind of what happened with Bush in 2000 and 2004. And frankly, if Palin can hold it together next week, it is what will happen to her. Performance tends to be evaluated relative to your perceived ability to debate. Secondly, this is McCain's "home turf." International Relations is supposed to be McCain's strength. His ability to not stand head and shoulders above Obama's positions in the debate is a bad sign for McCain because it differentiates him less in the good ways from Obama. And finally, the reason why holding your own is enough for Obama is that in the case of Obama, you have a base that's voting FOR him - and by and large the Republican base is voting AGAINST Obama and not for McCain. When your campaign is running hard against someone else instead of running for yourself, and your opponent "holds his own," he just neutralized another thing you can use against him.

 

[bmags]

good post rex.