The Rumble In Oxford: First Thoughts:

No  memorable moments.
Fascinating body language.

No major gaffes by either candidates. 

No major surprises. 

Experience v. judgment

A good debate for both men.

The big policy news: McCain floated an across-the-board spending freeze (with a few exceptions).

McCain did not filter himself, letting his frustration and contempt for Obama show; he wouldn't let himself look at the challenger. He seemed to be channeling that famous Saturday Night Live skit featuring "Michael Dukakis" who looks to the camera and says, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy."  Over and over, he adopted the pose of an impatient school teacher: Obama  "doesn't understand" or Obama "is naïve." 

Obama was a cool cat throughout - although I am reliably informed that GOP spinners are claiming the exact opposite.

 He seemed confident enough to stand up to McCain's challenges and in a deferential way. He seemed at times to go out of his way to agree with McCain when agreement was warranted, which the McCain campaign will surely point out. One impish moment: when Obama said "I have a bracelet too" after McCain movingly recounted his conversations with the families of deployed troops. And some of his early pivots back to "hard working Americans" seemed canned.  But generally, he did not overspeak; he got to his points quickly, and he drew plenty of direct contrasts with McCain.

As the candidates debated the bailout, it was McCain, not Obama, who sounded senatorial, and his obsession with earmarks presupposes an earmark pitchfork brigade that does not exist.  McCain didn't even defend his tax plan; he simply returned to the comfort zone of earmarks.  

Where McCain was shaky in the first half of the debate, he was on much firmer ground as he navigated Jim Lehrer's  broad foreign policy questions, particularly those questions which did not require McCain to defend his Iraq war.  Obama agreed with McCain - and said so - almost as much as he disagreed.  But he didn't topple or stumble..

Thresholds are artificial, but both candidates seemed to meet them - although Obama's threshold was arguably higher. 

The press will probably conclude that McCain did not fundamentally change impressions tonight.  And that Obama held his own.

Tags: debate | McCain | Obama

Comments

Mccain was condescending. He kept on saying that weired like 'Senator Obama does not understand' when Obama showed many times how McCain's judgement was wrong.

Posted by Matt | September 26, 2008 10:48 PM

McCain looked stubborn and like a "I know it all" type old grandpa.

Posted by one | September 26, 2008 10:49 PM

I may be biased but I felt that McCain was more badgering and controlling the debate. Is this good for McCain? Not to people I know and hang out with. But maybe it is for the swing voters.

Posted by RMP | September 26, 2008 10:53 PM

Obama handily won with his down to earth approach.

And McCain not even once said anything about Bin Laden.

Posted by Chris | September 26, 2008 10:53 PM

Gallup: Americans Favor Meeting With U.S. Enemies

Gallup has a survey showing that a strong majority of Democrats and Independents and almost half of Republicans would support a presidential-level meeting with nations unfriendly to U.S. interests.

Dems: 79% in favor, 19% opposed
Inds: 70% in favor, 29% opposed
GOPers: 48% in favor, 51% opposed

Asked if a POTUS should meet with Iranian leaders, six of 10 (59%) were supportive. Here's the party divide on the Iran question:

Dems: 71% in favor, 26% opposed
Inds: 58% in favor, 40% opposed
GOPers: 48% in favor, 51% opposed

The poll surveyed 1,013 Americans nationally during summer.

Posted by Survey | September 26, 2008 10:55 PM

According to CNN focus group McCain was condescending to Obama.

According David Gergen McCain lost in a way today because he needed a clear win which did not happen. So the winner is Obama.

Posted by Linda | September 26, 2008 10:57 PM

McCain missed a big opportunity to tie Obama and the Dems to the financial crisis via Fannie & Freddie and their obsession with affordable housing. Also, too much time on earmarks, which are small beans as a percentage of the budget.

On the other hand, Obama painted himself as an old school tax & spend liberal when he couldn't mention a single program he'd consider cutting if his budget was tight; he just rattled off new spending priorities instead: early childhood ed, etc.

Posted by Fred | September 26, 2008 10:59 PM

I thought the single most important question before this debate was whether Obama comes across as commanding and presidential. He's the one with whom Americans are less familiar, after all.

He did. He should pick up many of the moderate dems who were holding out for non-racial reasons.

Posted by Ban Johnson | September 26, 2008 11:00 PM

McCain looked like he was upset that he's up against a challenger that is considerably his junior. Obama looked liked an athlete well trained for the distance. We move on.

Posted by Gharza | September 26, 2008 11:04 PM

McCain had no flag pin - Obama does have one.

Posted by Linda | September 26, 2008 11:08 PM

They both did well, but Obama being more presidential will certainly increase the voters "comfort level". Just as Reagan needed to do in the 1980 debates.

Posted by friskie | September 26, 2008 11:13 PM

I understand McCain has limited range of motion. But he has to be careful when he raises his arms and hunches...he looks like a mad scientist trying to scare kids at halloween with the crazed look on his face. And let's just see how much whiplash Kissinger creates. Sullivan linked to an article titled 'Open Direct Iran Talks' where he's quoted as saying high level meetings. Obama was also correct that Dinner Jacket is not actually the most powerful person in Iran's government, a fact I'm not really seeing in the fact checking.

Posted by kravitz | September 27, 2008 12:52 AM

McCain offers "across-the-board spending freeze (with a few exceptions)."

Huge exceptions -- defense, vets affairs, entitlements. Not all that much pie left to freeze, and standard issue Republicanism, really.

Posted by Ralph W., Minneapolis | September 27, 2008 12:53 AM

During the presidential debate, John McCain humbly mentioned wearing a bracelet in honor of a dead soldier and promptly shared the name of that soldier with us. Then Obama did something I found absolutely appalling. Obama said, “I gotta bracelet too, it’s uh, uh,…” and then he had to look down to read the name on the bracelet because he could not remember who the soldier was. As a a war veteran, this relayed clearly to me that Obama wears the bracelet bearing a dead soldier’s name as a political prop with no thought of the individual who made the ultimate sacrifice in giving his life in service to our country. I sincerely hope the American public sees Obama’s awful, heartless disrespect to the military shown over and over again in an internet or TV clip so the media can’t ignore it in their quest to bury Obama’s blunders.

Posted by TIML | September 27, 2008 1:00 AM

To McCain, Obama looks uppity. Simple as that.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | September 27, 2008 1:27 AM

Of course Republican spinners are saying the opposite. That is why they are spinners. That is why they published the "McCain won!!" ads half a day before the debate even began.

That is maybe the least insightful comment I have ever seen.

Posted by Curtis | September 27, 2008 1:30 AM

You watch CNN and MSNBC and all you hear is one sided bias overwhelming victory by Obama. I wonder if Keith Olberman and Wolf Blitzer are on Barak Hussein Obamas payroll. No wonder there are so many misinformed people not only in the U.S. but the whole world. A lot of people from different countries hates us because of these characters who call themselves journalists. It really doesn't matter if their views, they call it news, will hurt the image of all Americans as long as they can enhance the democrat issues which is lose the war in Iraq, bring down the economy so they can blame the Bush administration, portray the U.S. soldiers as barbarians and baby killers and so on and so forth. When Obama lose to McCain on November, a lot of people will be very upset because they all will say the same thing, "why did Obama lost when MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC was telling us everyday Obama was way ahead of McCain in all the polls?" WHY? Because there's is no accountability on what the media is saying anymore.

Posted by Ronnie | September 27, 2008 2:55 AM

do you want a president and an outstanding vice president or a Bush puppet and a Bush parrot. Wake up America. Vote Obama/Biden

Posted by Dee | September 27, 2008 4:24 AM

You know, that thing with the bracelet - you kind of missed the point of what was happening. McCain often ends his speeches with that same story about the mother and the bracelet. It is very touching. He always ends with the mother asking him to 'win in Iraq with honor' or something of that nature. I feel horrible for the mother, but after I had heard McCain tell the story for the 9th or 10th time, it started to sound a bit manipulative.

Some reporter who travels with the Obama campaign mentioned on a talk show that he had seen Obama receive many similar gifts from service families, although he had never mentioned it. Until now. And he said the mother told him, 'don't put any more mothers though what I'm going through.'

I hope more people caught that exchange rather than that moment when he needed to backtrack to remember the mother's name.

Posted by sabella | September 27, 2008 4:57 AM

How DARE MAD MAN Mccain credit himself with bringing home ALL the Vietnam POW's when he has spent the last thirty years DENYING they are STILL there as well as deliberately BLOCKING EVERY ATTEMPT the families have made trying to get their men back -- alive or dead. SOMEONE should ask Mc
cain ABOUT THIS on camera.
Moreover, the MAD MAN looked into Putin's EYES and saw, "KGB"?? McCain will take us to WAR with Russia without BLINKING. We will find ourselves in a nuclear WASTELAND with McCain-(and GOD FORBID) PALIN at the switch.
The IMPERIAL condescension Mad Man exhibited was sickening. He is so far removed from SANITY and being connected to humanity. A doddering old FOOL so out of touch it is frightening.

Posted by Karen Lee | September 27, 2008 6:11 AM

We are facing a great depression in this nation again. Neither of these candidates have a clue. And yet all the political blogs and television commentators mindlessly carry on about debating style. Barack Obama and John McCain had absolutely nothing to say about what to do to get the nation out of this disaster. Who lost the debate? America.

Posted by Thingumbob Esq | September 27, 2008 9:37 AM

"ALL the Vietnam POW's when he has spent the last thirty years DENYING they are STILL there as well as deliberately BLOCKING EVERY ATTEMPT the families have made trying to get their men back -- alive or dead."
I've heard this before and I wish the factcheckers would discuss. Is this correct?

I'm a strong Obama supporter, so am biased, but I narrowly give it to Obama for tone and substance. Really seemed a draw on FP. On economy, as usual McCain had little to stay and fell back on those idiotic earmark and maverick talking points.

I wish Obama and/or surrogates would talk more about how dangerous McCain's approach to healthcare would be to most average folks. Many HC experts have concluded that his focus on market competition to control prices and his new taxing of medical benefits would simply encourage businesses to jettison comprehensive healthcare coverage for employees. For McCain the market god would then step in to make everything better--that's worked so well for the banking industry! For employees this would be a disaster as they would then be at the mercy of the predatory health insurance industry in a search for affordable individual healthcare plans.

Found his weird smirk when mentioning Palin as another maverick (another empty talking point) particularly offputting, when she's being flayed currently by the press because he put her into the public eye before she was ready.

Over the course of this campaign, Obama has grown in stature, McCain has merely maintained (his tired rhetoric on spending and earmarks)--in comparison McCain seems to diminish as time goes on and voters see more and more of Obama.

Posted by KLK | September 27, 2008 9:45 AM

I was a silent reader and listner of the debates. I just want to tell america, get out from racial differences, trust the person inside the outer skin, after all what we need is a man or a woman of integrity, truth, honesty, intelligence and Godly one who trusts on the creator and lover of man. God through Jesus Christ loves all mankind and He is sustaining us all. Choose Obama, He is the follower of the truth, and a lover of Jesus Christ. He is a man to trust, Bush and McCain, have missused the Love of the Lord and killed the innocent in vietnam and Iraq in the name of christianity..

Posted by Arsela | September 27, 2008 7:14 PM