UPDATED BELOW:For the first portion, dealing with the economy, both candidates surprised me. The chief goals I saw for the Senators were that McCain needed to avoid blowing up and getting flustered, and Obama needed to avoid the long pauses and pensive consideration and filtering before each answer. Obama needed more passion than he’s shown in previous debates, and McCain needed to be engaged while not being overly confrontational. Both of them stepped up to the plate on those counts. In terms of the economic crisis, it is still a cloudy, complicated issue which most Americans don’t fully understand, and I’m not sure if the candidates do either. I would have to call that portion a draw. Obama used a few too many “umms” and “errrs” but McCain also had a few moments of ire. Neither went over the top.
When they got to Iraq, that was a battle which I feel McCain was destined to lose given broad American opinions. McCain gave a very well-presented argument, but Obama wisely fell back on the question of whether or not we should have ever gone there in the first place. That’s going to play well across the country, and Obama seemed to surge during that portion (pun intended) and spoke knowing that he was on solid ground.
The Afghanistan argument was far more cloudy. I felt McCain was stronger on the facts for this portion, and both of them seemed a bit vague on how success would be achieved. McCain seemed to know the turf, but tried to claim that “his” strategy in Iraq would work there, but you can’t transplant an urban war strategy into the mountains of the Pakistan border. Obama, on the other hand, seemed to stumble a bit on the cultural aspects of the whole “winning the hearts and minds” question. That section I would give to McCain by a slim margin.
On Iran, Obama rallied. This is a point where he needed to make McCain look like he was going to open up another front in the war and not be willing to talk and use diplomacy. He accomplished that. McCain’s failure to pronounce the name of Iran’s president on three tries seemed to stand out and make him look fumbling. When McCain tried to use the “would meet without pre-conditions” argument and Obama tore him to pieces, bringing up Kissinger’s advice on the prerogative of presidents to make the call on the diplomacy field as needed. McCain came off as the warmonger, which I think was exactly what Obama wanted.
When Obama brought up the “meeting with Spain” point, McCain was knocked back on his heels.
It was only during the final phase of the debate when I saw some daylight opening between the two. As well as McCain seemed to do for the first 75 minutes, he began cutting off Obama during his answers, almost like a daytime talk show shouting festival. He seemed like a man who felt he was behind and had to score a knockout punch. Obama, on the other hand, went back to some of his most solid talking points on his record and remained poised. McCain went to insults, calling Obama “naive” among other things. He began rattling sabers against Russia and tried to look like the muscle man.
Obama’s closer, talking about a “wider view” of global issues was possibly his best moment of the night. He forced McCain back on his heels and had him talking about “wrong ideas” on Iraq. The close, for those who watched to the bitter end, had to go to Obama.
Is there a winner? If I absolutely had to make the coin toss call, the ending would give a slight edge to Obama. They both performed a bit better than my admittedly low expectations of both, but in the end I think Obama walked away looking a bit more like a president and McCain let a bit of the “angry old man” meme out of the yard before they finished.
UPDATE: One of Obama’s strong points, with Kissinger, will be dealt a blow with this report.
Henry Kissinger believes Barack Obama misstated his views on diplomacy with US adversaries and is not happy about being mischaracterized. He says: “Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.”
If this receives coverage, it’s going to let some of the air out of the tires. I won’t be surprised if Dr. Kissinger makes the rounds this Sunday to clarify.