Then I switched to FOX and 82% of their viewers who voted afterwards via text messaging thought McCain won. I think 16% thought Obama won (in the interests of transparency I texted into Fox my choice of Obama). The remainder considered it a draw.

Then I switched to CNN and watched the rerun a little bit. CNN had an ongoing audience poll counter (whatever they're called, I'm embarrassed I can't recall off the top of my head). And it seemed that Dems were for Obama and Reps were for McCain. The party line held true even on issues I thought the other party would have liked about the other guy's candidate (either I don't understand what's important to the “other side” or the vote was strictly partisan.

As far as independents…. they didn't show as much enthusiasm as either the Dems or the Reps did for their candidates. But it seemed to me that the independents were more or less equal towards Obama and McCain.

I'm left with the impression that there wasn't a clear winner nor loser. Though I personally feel Obama did much better than McCain.

Also, color my cynical, but CNN's sample seems far too small to be held as reliable. The general rule of thumb is more people = more reliable. That's why the most cited polls are usually above 1000 respondents.

My off-the-cuff reaction — for the partisans watching the debate, nothing changed. McCain supporters remain McCain supporters, and Obama supporters remain Obama supporters. But for that small sliver of undecided independent voters…this debate may have helped swing them slightly in favor of Obama. Just a little bit, but a little bit is all that is needed.

For me personally, I viewed the debate largely as a draw – Obama and McCain both did reasonably well, and had their strong and weak points. If this was a boxing match I would probably edge Obama the win on points, but I could easily see if someone else gave McCain the slight win as well. A draw.

But then again, I decided in favor of Obama a long time ago, so it's not like this debate was aimed at someone like me. So, how I viewed whether “Obama won” or “McCain won” is, well, irrelevant.

For the undecided on-the-fence voter, they may have a totally different perspective. And since I feel that voter block is ultimately going to decide this election, it is their opinion that matters most. From the MediaCurves thing, it looks like Obama may have scored well tonight.

There's also the question of what people who don't follow politics like TMV readers learned. For us, almost everything Obama said is old news. But for people who don't follow, they may have gotten a far more nuanced version of Obama than they previously had. This might explain why the polling (possibly) supports an Obama win while for us it seemed fairly even.

Ouchies….lol…

The public didn't like McCain's transparent chicken attempt to ditch the debate. The polls are going to show a significant bump for Obama that will gain momentum each day the economy stands stagnant from GOP waffling on not wanting to help Mainstreet out as much as dems are pushing for….and rightly they should..

It's the only way we will rebuild: from the foundation up this time..

No gravy for gamblers.