Whew. Here at the close of an absolutely insane week of economics and politics we had the first presidential debate. A debate that almost became a 90 minute monologue from Obama before McCain thought better of his idiotic threat to “boycott” the debate.
My initial take? It was a solid performance from both candidates, but I think Obama won narrowly by sticking to the questions a bit better and being much stronger with his rebuttals. McCain was a bit repetitive and seemed to fall back on his own talking points when rebutting rather than facing Obama’s responses head-on.
I’ll provide bits from my notes below the fold.
The big story is how badly McCain misjudged this entire week. He came off as a loony overreacter by first stating the “fundamentals of the economy are sound,” and immediately reversing course and claiming the financial crisis is the worst problem the US has faced since World War II. Not very statesmanlike.
He compounded the unforced error by “suspending” his campaign, but not really and being exposed in the press for the subterfuge. He then charged to DC to fix the financial mess himself and ended up blamed for scuttling the bailout by emboldening House GOPers who promptly threw him under the bus. It’s not correct, but the impression is he single handedly screwed the bipartisan plan put together by Congress and the White House.
And of course he said he wouldn’t debate unless a bailout plan was in place. There’s no plan in place and he was behind his podium in Oxford, Mississippi, looking quite heavily made-up and relatively fresh.
The end result? Obama wins this critical week in the presidential race by a very, very wide margin. He looked and sounded presidential and serious where McCain looked like shit creek sailor without a paddle.
Go below the fold for my at-the-time notes on the debate from tonight.
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