I've been MIA again, yes I know, and despite my promises to the contrary. For all two of you who might drop in on this from time to time, my apologies. I don't know what to do except just pick up where I left off.
Political junkie that I am, I was up all night watching the pregame, the debate, and the postmortem. (I'm working a shift next week, the killer Mod 4, 1PM to post-midnight, please-fuck-me-deeper-harder shift, so I'll have to catch Biden-v-Bambi on TiVo). Bottom line: both men missed opportunities, and it ended in a draw. And a draw goes to Obama.
But that's understating it a bit, isn't it? This was, nominally at least, the foreign policy debate, and it was the last bar for Obama to hurdle in the Can-He-Be-CiC department. McCain, conversely, really, really needed to show the country that Obama was unqualified to be Commander in Chief.
That's right, he needed to show it. Not tell it. This is a critical distinction for people who write, say, science fiction and other less noble forms of literature. "Show, don't tell," is a key mantra in the liturgy of the effective storyteller. McCain kept telling us that Obama "doesn't understand." At the same time Obama kept showing us that, well, yeah, he does understand foreign policy, maybe even better than John "Bomb Iran" McCain. During the foreign policy debate he was able to fluidly spout enough facts to give voters the impression he knew what he was talking about, look more hawkish on killing Bin Laden than McCain, and appear reasonable, cautious and presidential.
Obama didn't just demonstrate his own fluency in fp, he was also able to go after McCain. Obama's litany of "you told us x about Iraq, and you were wrong" was one of the top sound bites of the night.
But he got as good as he gave. To my eye, Obama clearly lost the exchange over diplomacy--even though any thinking voter has to conclude he's right on the issue, McCain had the upper hand on the quip-o-meter at the end of this skirmish. But overall, Obama impressed me on the foreign policy side of the debate, and should have easily cleared the CiC bar with most voters. That's a triumph, and a major missed opportunity for McCain.
On the economic end of the debate, McCain fared better, but only in a negative sense, by steering the discussion away from the meltdown-bailout issue to his obsession with earmarks and spending. That kept Obama from connecting as fully as he wanted to with bread-and-butter issues--but it kept McCain away from the kitchen table, too. In fact, while Obama took as many opportunities as he could to talk about working Americans and the middle class, McCain never uttered the words--an "issue" that's getting plenty of attention on the airwaves, blogs and campaign trail today. Obama looked Too Cool for School on this front end of the debate, when he needed to be warmer and less professorial. Cool is great for the fp debate, and he had it there, but on the economy Obama needs more of that old Clinton bite the lip and feel your pain. He didn't have it. So the economy debate goes, marginally to McCain, for keeping O off his game. But it's a pyrrhic victory. And Obama has two more chances to wrangle Mac on the economy. My guess is the Professor won't make the same mistakes next time.
Before I went to bed, the insta-polls all seemed to be giving the debate to Obama, and by much larger margins than I would have guessed. On points, I thought it was a tie, or maybe McCain, although on style I thought it was all Obama. Obama was dignified, articulate, engaging, relaxed, commanding and, well, presidential. McCain was scrunched-up, prickly, snarky, and refused to look at his opponent, which seems to have given many viewers (including this one) the impression that debating this upstart was somehow beneath him. Doesn't play. Still, a 15-point spread in the insta-polls and focus groups for Obama? I have to think that this is a gmisch of sampling bias (probably 2-5 points right there) and low expectations for Obama on the foreign policy end.
Bottom line: neither guy self-immolated or knocked out the other. And that's a good night for Obama, if not a great one.
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