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Second Pres Debate: Who Won?

Well, the last question was pretty disappointing--or more accurately, neither candidate's answering it. On the bright side, McCain made a fool of himself in the process--rather than using issues to dodge like Obama did, he just fell back on the war hero line.
 
I think it was in McCain's favor.
He had better control of himself and the debate.
 
My name is T. Boone Pickens. And I am ticked off that nobody mentioned fricken compressed natural gas. I mean what the heck man, I've bought like billions in ads so far.
 
Well, I'm at work now so I haven't been able to see it yet, but judging from the live blog at the NY times, Obama won.

Tough Talk | 10:25 p.m. Here, Mr. Obama has a star turn — on foreign policy, Mr. McCain’s supposed turf. Mr. Obama is more forceful than usual, and makes the hunt for Osama bin Laden his singular focus.

“We will kill bin Laden, we will crush al Qaeda,” he declares. “That has to be our biggest national priority.”

By contrast, Mr. McCain seems a bit rambling. He quotes his favorite president, Teddy Roosevelt, as preferring to walk softly but carry a big stick and says that Mr. Obama “likes to talk loudly,” by announcing, for example, “that he wants to attack Pakistan.”

Mr. Obama talks Mr. Brokaw into allowing him to respond. Mr. Brokaw shrugs, “I’m just the hired help here.”

Mr. Obama says that nobody is talking about invading Pakistan. If Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin laden, we should do it, he says.
Click to expand...

See, that's what I want deep down. Bin Laden's head on a spear. (metaphorically speaking)
It reassures those of us who were worried that Obama might be too much of a peacenik.

No Dustups | 10:15 p.m. More than an hour into the debate, no big gaffes, no knock-out punches. Both candidates have made digs at each other, but nothing we haven’t heard before and nothing that qualifies as “taking the gloves off.”

Mr. McCain is more aggressively courting the audience and the ref. Both candidates, who’ve been ignoring the time limits, demand follow-ups.
Click to expand...
 
I only watched the first 40 minutes, and I don't think there was a clear "winner" during that period.

Probably, I think Obama won, at 4:00 Eastern time, at the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange. So many of the questions were of the form, "With the economy down the tubes, what would you do?" McCain could spin all he wanted, but that's a rough way to start the evening.
 
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If I had a shot of Wild Turkey every time McCain mentioned General Prateous, I'd be on the floor right now.
 
Well, to answer the OP's question ... The President won. :p
 
Slightly in favor of McCain, but not enough to matter.

I thought McCain looked and sounded much better than the last debate, and definitely seemed more comfortable with the format than Obama. I also thought he worked his talking points in a lot more naturally here than last time.

Given their positions in the polls, though, I think Obama did well enough. In the end, it was a good debate, but a forgettable one.
 
Draw. No one got knocked out and at this point, I don't think anyone gained any converts to their side.

I've voting for Obama but if I had to weigh the candidate's debating skills and performance, they are pretty much even.

Then again, Bush and Kerry were pretty much even in the debates. So that tells you something about winning a debate.
 
Overall I think the candidates fell back on my Drinking Game talking points. McCain started out off of them but picked it up later in the game with unconditional talks drinks.

The candidates went out of their way to portray themselves as clones yet again.

Now they are both for:
nuclear power
cowboy diplomacy
attacking iran

The differences seem to be:
Healthcare, neither of which I think congress will pass as-is
Invading Darfur

Curiously, Obama seems to be trying to position himself as the real hawk of the two, unafraid to unapologetically launch operations into Pakistan or to go into Darfur.

Beam me up Mr. Speaker.
 
They're pretty much even??? Everyone heard what McWho? said about Obama
"invading" Pakistan. In that moment during the Debate, McWho? kicked himself
in front of millions of people.

Also, "Bomb bomb bomb" Iran was a major blowback for the guys point with
the "big stick". [And I'm not sure if that was a sexual reference]
 
I agree with a TV commentator that the questions covered too narrow a range of subjects, and both candidates basically just repeated their stump speech boilerplate.

A pretty boring debate, with both candidates awash in mediocrity.

I don't know who won, but the American voter wanting to know if there was anything more about the two major party candidates besides soundbites was certainly the loser.
 
Surprised the mood here is in McCain's favor. He showed improvements, but my reading of CNN's on-screen indicators leads me to think Obama came out better.

One big thing I noticed is the approval drops whenever McCain criticized Obama directly - this does not bode well for his end game campaign strategy.
 
I think that they came out basically even in this debate. It was apparent that McCain was more comfortable with this format.

That being said, "even" is a big loss for McCain; Obama basically showed, again, that he can be presidential and hang with the big dogs. With McCain so far behind in the polls, what he needed tonight to make any real difference in slowing Obama's momentum was to have a major game-changer.

He didn't have that.

No game-changer at this stage = McCain is finished.***

At least, that's my read of things. And the Republican strategist on ABC News agreed that McCain did nothing tonight to blunt Obama's surge in the polls, so he's in trouble - big trouble.

***Caveat: I do think McCain is done, but that's no reason for the Democrats to get overconfident and lazy. Obama's campaign is smart, and they're going all-out from here until Election Day. They want to ensure that it's not just "squeaking out a win", they want a major win with an obvious margin of victory.
 
Oliver said:
They're pretty much even??? Everyone heard what McWho? said about Obama
"invading" Pakistan. In that moment during the Debate, McWho? kicked himself
in front of millions of people.

Also, "Bomb bomb bomb" Iran was a major blowback for the guys point with
the "big stick". [And I'm not sure if that was a sexual reference]
Click to expand...


As an Obama supporter, I agree with you that McCain screwed up on these points, especially how he ham-fistedly addressed the "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" question. His answer was just stupid.

However, my previous analysis was my attempt to look at the debate as objectively as possible without my partisan lenses.
 
Meh. I don't put much stock in these insta-polls (got a link on that CNN poll, btw?). I'll wait until more detailed analyses come out. I'm guessing this debate, like the last two, won't really have much effect at all in the prediction markets.
 
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