Presidential debate III – candidate grades and final overall thoughts

“Game-changer” opportunity for McCain; sales pitch “closer” chance for Obama; grades below

And, was Obama too scripted?

My liveblogging of the debate is here, and my initial wrap-up on pundit analysis, etc, is here.

I’m putting a little more thought into this one, since it was the last of the three debates, and since this is the closest a debate has been to Election Day since Reagan-Carter in 1980. Between the two, this debate had the potential to be a game-changer.

And, it needed to be a game-changer for McCain.

But, it was also an opportunity for Obama to “close the sale,” and not just a time to play rope-a-dope.

How did each one do?

For McCain to have a game-changer, he either needed to energize the GOP “base,” particularly the social conservative side, to the moon, or else make a serious bid for independents. Other than his “no litmus test” claim for SCOTUS nominees, he clearly went for the base, not the center.

The $42,000 tax bottom line was swatted down before, and Obama addressed it more carefully this time. Besides, that’s not red meat for the base, although taxes are a big enough issue.

But, that led into McCain’s “redistribution” line. Obama deflected that by reminding listeners McCain voted for the bailout; I doubt that got much traction.

The Ayers connection? McCain could have done more with that, maybe pulling up some of the grants that the He had enough time to do that, and he didn’t. Bad debate prep, or was McCain indeed pulling back from the brink when it came to eye-to-eye time? A bit of both, I suspect.

Could he have done something? Yes; to many Americans, some of the grants might be questionable. Not to agree with truth value of all of Sol Stern’s claims, but questions about what Bill Ayers is doing today with Annenberg money and afterward might have.

But, I suspect the nation is indeed that tired of what might be perceived as negative campaigning that it would be tough to sell this to independents.

But, McCain had no problem being a junior Alan Keyes with his accusation that Obama let babies die. That was definite “red meat” to the base, but the “mother’s health” scare quotes is almost universally seen outside of diehard social conservatives, I think, as potentially being hugely off-putting to independents.

McCain gets a C.

He did a pretty good job in his goal of firing up the winger base, but it was the wrong choice, especially when done in a way that will be off-putting to independents.

Obama, as I said before, primarily needed to do rope-a-dope. He did that pretty well, with some good counterpunching. That said, he was fortunate, and he also missed a couple of blows. On Joe the Plumber, oe Wurzelbacher, he could have called McCain out for confusing or conflating total business earnings of $250K or so with individual income. He kept his cool, but, didn’t do as well as he could with this.

The Ayers issue? Got lucky McCain didn’t really go trolling there. As I indicated, I think that was the one area where McCain could have had his red meat for the base and ate it with independents as well.

The abortion issue? Worries, actual or alleged, about “angry black man” aside, a little more fire from Obama would have been nice.

And, that leads to the conclusion.

While not quite at Mike Dukakis level, that was definitely worse than McCain’s closing.

And, since Obama had the second close, it was a big whiff.

In answer to my rhetorical question above, I think Obama WAS too scripted, and nowhere did it show more than here.

This was his golden platter opportunity to close the deal, especially having the second closing. He knows that the kitchen sink is coming back out from the McCain campaign; he had a good chance to almost put his campaign beyond reach.

And, he didn’t.

If I were an undecided independent voter, I wouldn’t be wondering about his qualifications for the office. I might still be unsold on either his fire in the belly or his big-picture view.

Obama gets a C, too.

Barring a mistake, the election is his. But probably for only one term.

(Oh, Bob Schieffer did not appear in the tank for McCain; I would give him a decent B overall.)