Obama win; if so, this election is close to over barring some type of total implosion/scandal.

The consensus was that McCain probably won, because Obama let him get away with all that condescending bullshit.

I'm not sure I agree, but it was obnoxious.

Great quote, Hillary.

except for the first 20 minutes or so, which I watched on tv (what was with McCain's awful tie?).

I thought Obama did very well, especially considering that he is not typically a great debater. He sounded very poised and presidential, he didn't have a lot of vocalized pauses, and he made a lot of good points. The worst thing he did was to keep saying "I agree with John that..." But he didn't hurt himself at all.

Unfortunately, if I try to put myself in the place of an uninformed voter, I think McCain had a lot of simplistic messages that could get through. I didn't see the visuals, so I didn't get the sneering and condescension others have commented on.

I would have to say it sounded like a draw to me on the radio. And since McCain was having an awful week, a draw is good for him.

But if you consider that foreign policy is supposed to be McCain's strong suit and Obama's weakness, then Obama absolutely did what he needed to do. He was clearly well-informed and able to express a coherent point of view.

....who I think is a McCainiac, gave Obama an A-, McCain a B-, with Obama winning on all four categories--offense, defense, style and substance.

  McCain's comments on the economy were a disaster.  Ordinary Americans are worried about jobs, not the stupid earmarks!  What a joke.

obama makes me nervous in debates.  this one was no exception.  he needs more catchy soundbites.  he has the lawyerly tendency to always play defense and "correct the record".  i love him to pieces but sometimes i just want to say SPIT IT OUT!!

with that said...i don't know who won the debate.  it feels weird that so much of the debate centered on Iraq and related issues, when that's just not what's on most people's minds right now.  obama needs to polish up and absolutely blow mccain out of the water on the domestic and economic stuff in the next two debates.    

let's hope mccain has a major gaffe in one of the next two that get across to undecideds what we already know--  mccain's batshit crazy and has no plan for the country!

I find it funny that they don't have the guts to let Palin be interviewed.  Nice to see Biden all over TV and no Palin... even better the nets Covering their asses by saying... "Hey we asked, they said no"

50 and over according to the CNN poll 48-40; that's amazing.

58-31 over women and McCain just barely beat Obama among men.

It looks like Dems are still having trouble getting on board with Obama.

I'm beginning to smell failure.

I don't know how, but it's seemingly increasingly obvious that the country thought Obama did much better than we did.

McCain agreed that he would vote for the bailout.  At least, he appeared to mumble that he would.

Will he renege on that too?

Voting against an unpopular bailout, especially if Obama votes for it, could help him tremendously.

appearances can mean a lot. In the infamous Nixon/Kennedy debate radio listeners though Nixon won by a landslide, but the "appearances" on TV cemented the Kennedy win.

McCain looked.... ok, but had some bad body language, including refusing to look at Obama despite Lehrer's insistence. All Obama had to do was look good, answer safely and be confident. McCain was the expert here and he didn't shine to any extent.

McCain may or may not have eeked a small win on substance, but lost the expectations game and the image game.

He should have fired his PR people a long time ago.

The CW seems to be now, why wouldn't McCain look at Obama... hopefully, this meme goes viral and dominates the discussion over the weekend and beyond....

the consensus was: Obama did "fine", McCain eked out a win.

Then I come online to see unanimous polling in Obama's favor. And I note I'm not the only one to have this experience.

I can only assume we are victims of our partisan expectations? It's kind of baffling.

I disagree with your choice of "moment of the night."

I felt it was when Obama turned to McCain, looked him straight in the eye and said something to the effect of, "Tell me if I'm wrong but if bin Laden is in our sights, we take him out."  

McCain is willing to follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, but won't take him out on the Pakistani border without permission?  McCain didn't even address what Obama said!

I watched it...I thought it was a tie...

My girlfriend, non poltical, said McCain was awful.

I think we concentrate on the points, we ALL in our minds KNOW what Obama should say, or what we want him to say...

We KNOW when someone is lying.

McCain may have tied in our brains?

Obama seems to have won peoples hearts.

My girfriend say:

Obama looks like a President..

McCain does not....

The audacity that the main proponent of Deregulation is talking about himself like he is a sherriff in charge of keeping Wall Street bad guys in check.

Man, this is incredible; McCain couldn't even win on his own turf.

This is the reverse of Bush - Kerry, where Kerry outperformed Bush and a lot of people thought Bush won.  

Obama ran even, or slightly behind McCain but that was a big win for Obama I think, given the major topic.

I think Obama is playing safe.  I think he is up big, he knows it, and he isn't going to risk anythign that could blow it.  He treated McCain tonight almost like a dumb coworker.  He humored him.

I am watching the replay. To me, Obama is looking clearly superior in the first half hour.

than against Hillary, thought the non-precondition thing really hurt, I think. That whole thing was just said to please the far left and make him more a "dove" as opposed to Hillary the "hawk." Obama seemed to be on defense a little more, but its not like McCain did anything groundbreaking.

I didn't have a horse in this race.  I thought that when each candidate talked about the issues they got a message across.  When McCain called Obama names, he did not seem to help himself.

However, those early polls seem to have lost track of the core questions:

Who did you support now, before the debate?
Who did you support now, after the debate?

I am reminded of the "Who do you think will be the stronger leader?" question, while failing to ask "Do you think 'strong leader' is a desirable or an undesirable trait in a President?"

Perception is reality.

If the headlines say in the morning

"Polls say obama won"

That is all she wrote.

We are all SOOOO damn close, too close.

We have ALL already made up our minds, which means that is where we judge.

Those who haven't are looking for something in their guts....

Congradulations to Barack Obama and his debate team.

They must know something I don't.

When McCain used his opposition to torture as a reason to back his maverick image, Obama should have told him :so why was your own VP pick and your speakers at your convention making fun of the DEmocrats for caring about torture?

McCain - Senile old fool.

2 lame candidates.  Anyones else agree?  Am I living in the twilight zone?  Can't image how either won- both were seriously boring.

Michael Ware explains very clearly why the surge thing is bullshit.
All obama has to say is this " no shit, the surge works. But for how long? You can send 1000 cops and stop crime in most neighborhoods in the US. but is that going kill crime forever? NOO!!"

You send more soldiers, you get more results. But at what cost?

And even if you ignore that, would you trust the person who was possibly right on one little aspect of the war - the surge-  over a guy who wouldn't take you into a stupid war in the first place? That's like preferring a manager who made one good move in one inning of a baseball game to a guy who had a brilliant game plan for most of the game.

I dont know how some of you think Obama was just OK.  Gore, Lieberman, Kerry or Edwards did not approach this level of excellence in any of their debates in 2000 and 2004.

Obama is a different man from the guy we saw in the primariy debates.

I give Obama an A- for this debate.

I think we felt Obama didn't do as well as we hoped because we are mostly high-information people following the issues. Over and over again, I was saying "He needs to fight back on that statement with this killer comeback.!" but most viewers don't obsess about a lot of the details and don't even know those killer comebacks exist.

Apparently Obama did just fine at showing he knows the foreign policy stuff and wasn't afraid to challenge McCain on specifics. Also, despite what I thought at first, I think McCain hurt himself with his constant refrain about how Obama just doesn't understand a subject when the audience is watching Obama clearly demonstrate that he does know the subject.

yet Biden is everywhere. It's like they cloned the guy.

Look, even if you have a lame VP, you're not supposed to act like it. If she's THIS bad, that she can't be allowed to do her job, McCain is in a world of hurt - debates notwithstanding.

This "McCain Was Right" thing. Are people not allowed to agree anymore? Where I come from, refusing to find common ground makes you a stubborn ass.

I mean, if McCain says "I think we shouldn't bomb Nebraska", what is Obama supposed to say? Sometimes there are right and wrong answers.

http://mccombover.wordpress.com/2008/09/ 27/fox-news-focus-group-obama-wins-debat e/

Important thing to remember:

A "draw" in a debate on foreign policy with John McCain is actually a win for Obama.

I just wanted to add that maybe the coolest part of the night, from my computer speakers, was when Obama whipped out his dueling arm bracelet.  Here McCain gives this big story about how we must achieve "victory" in Iraq, whatever that means, because he received a bracelet from a soldier's family and that's what they wanted him to do.  At that time, I was sure that McCain would score a few cheap points and get Obama on the defensive.  Lo and behold, Obama whips out a bracelet given to him by a different family, who asked him to end the war.  That was just an amazing coincidence and totally defused McCain's anecdote.

Since when the phuk is Venezuela a rogue state.

They've had more free elections than we could ever dream of having.

BO hardly helps the cause of liberalism by adopting, wholesale, lies of the right.

Pathetic.

Yes, John McBush is a LIAR!! Almost all his adds are lies and If you watched the debate... you as I seen, that he lied about 12 times on his so called facts. That why he couldnt look Obama in the eyes, becouse he was lieing about him…. its a known fact that when a person lies to you they will not look at you. Also he never looked at the camera, not only was he lieing about Obama he lies to the American people. In Johns world its not America first its campaign first!! What a looser. As a Republican I can say this man is a bad pick! Im voting for the honest one, satan is the author of lies and he can be so convincing if you are blind.