In general, I thought, McCain looked and sounded bitter, vindictive, and small. While Obama was presidential throughout, agreeing with McCain on occasion, exuding generosity and expansiveness and, above all, presenting a substantive articulation of his policies and positions, McCain dismissed him repeatedly as “naive,” turning much of the debate into an ad hominem assault. He never even looked at Obama.

Which is not to say that Obama won, let alone won easily. I’d say it was roughly a draw, with McCain doing well at times, notably in presenting himself, however inaccurately, as a long-time maverick with tons of experience. As well, Obama could have done better connecting McCain to Bush on issues like tax cuts for the wealthy and Iraq, and pointing out just how wrong McCain has been on those and other issues. (Obama didn’t, perhaps because he couldn’t, suggest, even implicitly, that McCain’s volatile temperament may make him unfit for the Oval Office.) I’d also add that McCain did well on Russia and on support for veterans. Yes, I’ll admit it, there were a few moments when McCain seemed fairly commanding, or at least fairly sure of himself, but he also seemed annoyed and angry. Contrary to Obama, who seemed frustrated with McCain’s deceptions and misrepresentations.

Overall, though, I think Candy Crowley’s right that it was all rather flat, especially the beginning.

Using the ubiquitous boxing metaphor, there was no knock-out punch from either side — but, then, these debates don’t lend themselves to such punches. (Although McCain’s inability to pronounce the names Ahmadinejad (Iran) and Zardari (Pakistan) was pretty embarrassing.)

On the merits, though, I do think Obama won. He did well early on discussing the financial crisis, he did well on Iraq, he did well defending his position on talking to foreign leaders without preconditions (but with preparation), he did well on (alternative) energy, he did well on Russia and nuclear proliferation, and he did well on most other issues as well. Specifically, I thought his call for the restoration of America’s image around the world was strong.

There are too many other points to mention here. We’ll have more to come, but, in the meantime, make sure to check out the live-blogging over at Think Progress. Basically, McCain was full of it throughout the debate, and the good people at TP point out where and how.

But I’m not sure it matters much. The pundits are more or less split, from what I can tell. Chris Matthews at least pointed out McCain’s meanness and smallness. But the rest of them are divided according to partisanship. David Gergen, somewhere in the un-partisan middle, seems to think it was more or less a draw, or at least that McCain needed to do better, given that foreign policy is his strength, or so it is assumed.

And of course it’s not about the substance, it’s about the perception. And the perception will be, I think, that both of them did okay.