Obama v. McCain: Round One

Short assessment: Obama clocked him.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: on the issues, there were no surprises. They repeated slogans, gave some boring details, and generally did their jobs. Most Americans don't listen to details, and probably tuned out after 20 minutes. And according to the ratings, fewer Americans watched this debate than watched the same Bush/Kerry debate in 2004.

Most Americans respond emotionally to the candidates, which helps explain why Obama doesn't have a more commanding lead. He has been, until now, unable to connect emotionally to more than 48% of the electorate.

But what we saw on Friday was staggering. McCain looked older, rattled and more frail than we have ever seen him. He has literally aged years in the past two weeks. According to my Mother, who is quite an emotional person, it's probably due to Palin's complete mental meltdown on Katie Couric a few days prior, and the ensuing blowback from Republican party stalwarts to have her removed from the ticket. See here.

I completely agree that Palin, and her dropping popularity are a problem, but I also think that the financial crisis has been quite humiliating for McCain. His reactions have been all over the place, and quite extreme, which is scary since what you want is cool level-headedness in the face of a crisis. He started with "the fundamentals of the economy are strong", to "I meant American workers", to we're headed for the Great Depression if I don't intervene, PERSONALLY. Talk about messianic? Is he kidding? For more on what happened in DC behind closed doors that would have lead to McCain being so out of it at the debate, see here.

The other interesting point, also raised by TPM, is that Obama made no mistakes at the debate, and that in and of itself is a huge victory. In 2004, Kerry would win every debate on the issues, and snap polls would support that, but then the Rove machine would take one or two of Kerry's gaffes during the debate, magnify and amplify them, and turn Kerry into the loser of the debate in the days that followed. But Obama seems to have that Bill Clinton quality, which INFURIATES his critics, that you can't quite grasp at anything to throw back at him. There were so many moments in the debate when Obama could have lost it and said something nasty, but it was McCain who could barely conceal his contempt. And so far, the Republicans haven't been able to embarrass Obama in any way, which must make them crazy.

So final verdict on Round One, which McCain should have been able to win with two arms tied behind his back, goes to Obama, for being cool, calm and collected.