We trusted him to be fair!

First the “Above my pay grade remark”. , definately not very presidential.

It's refreshing to see a candidate calmly and confidently assert that doesn't know everything. Do you know when the human soul is created? Do you even know if there is a soul?

Obama also made 2 huge mistakes:

First the “Above my pay grade remark”. , definately not very presidential.

Second the snafu where he caught himself an instant too late when he started to utter that Justice Thomas would have been the Justice he wouldn't have appointed due to a lack of experience. Thomas in fact was more experienced regarding the Supreme Court than Obma is for the office of the presidency. Very rarely do you see a candiate shoot themssself in the foot so obviously and Obama did it twice.

Without his teleprompter Obama seems to stumble and stutter, although some will write it off as him thinking while he answers, it seems to me to be a bit of uncertainty and a lack of conviction on core issues. There was no question that was asked that he should not have been ready to answer. These guys have been campaigning along time, during the Iowa caucas being caught offguard might have been excusable, but not now.

All that being said, Obama did nothing that will lose him many votes except among evangelicals or pro-life voters which he probably didn't have many of before. But If this had been the final televised debate, we would be inaugerating John McCain as President in January.

The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature [as to the time of ensoulment], but it constantly affirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion.

And his quote from Steve Pinker is definitely food for thought:

Just as a microscope reveals that a straight edge is really ragged, research on human reproduction shows that the 'moment of conception' is not a moment at all. Sometimes several sperm penetrate the outer membrane of the egg, and it takes time for the egg to eject the extra chromosomes … Even when a single sperm enters, its genes remain separate from those of the egg for a day or more, and it takes yet another day or so for the newly merged genome to control the cell. So the 'moment' of conception is in fact a span of twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

You reap what you sow, eh?

I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying. I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported – which was to say –that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born – even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade. By the way, we also had a bill, a law already in place in Illinois that insured life saving treatment was given to infants.

So for people to suggest that I and the Illinois medical society, so Illinois doctors were somehow in favor of withholding life saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it's an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond. It's one thing for people to disagree with me about the issue of choice, it's another thing for people to out and out misrepresent my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they're wrong. And that's what's been happening.

At any rate, McCain has displayed that he's against abortion in all circumstances, including rape and incest, and technically even in cases when the health of the mother is threatened. Good luck trying to paint that as anything but extremist.

As Not WRIGHT for America (http://www.notwrightforamerica.com) points out, Obama clearly does not believe life begins at birth, that's why he voted agains the Infants Born Alive Protection Act. So when does he think life begins, 1 month, 1 year? Oh, that's right, above his pay grade! What he means is we should ask Planned Parenthood. That's who he takes orders from on this issue.

Obama doesn't need (or, I suspect, expect) to win over a majority of evangelical voters, for his appearance at Saddleback to have been successful. Given his stances on hot-button topics such as abortion, Obama will never win over a majority of those for whom such litmus test issues are the be-all and end-all of their political interest.

What he needs to do with with Evangelicals is similar to what McCain needs to do with latinos, cut into his opponent's historical stronghold.

I can well imagine some thoughtful evangelicals in his wider audience to whom his sincere expressions of belief and calls to service for those less fortunate would have some appeal. Obama simply refuses to cede uncontested, a significant part of the electorate.

As for McCain, though his lapses into his stump speech were, for a political junkie like myself, tiresome to say the least, they seemed to go over well with the immediate audience is Oh-so-red Orange county. And it may well be that he accomplished what needs to be one of his main goals, firming up his support with social conservative skeptical of his bona fides.

Whether such a confirmation of his right-wing stances hurts or helps him with a broader audience remains to be seen.

My verdict: not win/lose, but apples/oranges.

Debates are so stupid. Its a case of gotcha and thats not what politics is really about. Bush and Putin dont sit in a room waiting for the other person to say Bellar rusha instead of Belarus. They dont wait patiently for the other person to say Ive been to 48 states mabey more and deem it the other person is broken.

Anyone remember Lock Box?

This is way more informative for the candidates to reveal what they stand for instead of trying to score debate points. Id rather know what makes Obama tick then listen to his canned stump speeches for the 600000 time during 3 debates.

Weve had one at a Chruch. The next one could be at a University. Another one could be at a Military base. They dont have to all be at a church or run by a church. They could each have their own themes.