Candidate grades are here, in a look not just at this debate, but in context of the looming election deadline.
“Obama did not sit on his lead; it was not a game-changer … for McCain,” Mark Shields says on PBS. Both he and Brooks note Obama’s coolness.
Wonder “what will move him.”
Brooks: “McCain seemed tight.”
Both note little new ground, and neither had much of a big picture.
Clarence Page: Both came out stronger.
Michael Beschloss: McCain hurt himself with the negative attacks. Bush I and Dole diminished themselves against Bill Clinton, he said. Beschloss says the roundtable format makes it worse.
Jim Lehrer: But, Schieffer brought it up.
Page: The issue has largely been put to rest, on Ayers.
Brooks: Palin actually a negative factor. Boy, the rats are deserting the ship.
Looking a bit at other blogs, etc. --
TPM? I don't think McCain looked "seething," but being on the phone and leading an online meeting at the same time as the second half of the meeting, I'm not sure.
FiveThirtyEight says focus groups lean Obama:
CNN poll: Obama 58, McCain 31.
CBS undecideds: Obama 53, McCain 22.
Joan Walsh: Palin is driving away more people than she’s bringing in, and McCain didn’t counter that, especially on abortion.
Well, put a fork in Schmuck Talk, he's done.
On the right wing, over at The Corner, Ramesh Ponnuru, perhaps one of few National Review people with a semi-objective brain, says McCain was “spluttering.” Everybody else there is on a McCain tire swing. Will they boot Ramesh just like Christopher Buckley?
As for V.D. Hansen’s complaint that nobody knows who Obama will be… he’ll be a cooler, smoother Bill Clinton neoliberal. Unfortunately.
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