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Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post described McCain as appearing in this debate better than any previous ones. A command of the subject matter and the stage is about as good a critique as McCain’s camp might expect from the MSM. Cillizza also points to the discussion on preconditions as McCain’s strongest moment for hitting Obama on misunderstanding Kissinger. The earlier post from this blog reviewing that point of the debate mentioned Obama’s flaw at redefining ‘preconditions’ as merely ‘preparation’.’ And that the point on Kissinger was likely to bite someone in the backside. Cillizza places the bite on Obama.

He goes on to say Obama’s objective was to link McCain to Bush but suggested many may remember McCain as the one who opposed Bush in the 2000 campaign. While this report from WaPo stops short of declaring a clear winner it obviously gives the lion’s share of positive points to John McCain.

Jonathan Last from the Weekly Standard has a report entitled ‘Fight Night, Scoring Obama-McCain Round by Round’ in which he scores the bout not as a knockout or TKO but a decision giving McCain victory in seven out of eight rounds.

My scorecard says that McCain won the night 7-1, which frankly surprises me. On paper that looks like a rout, but McCain didn’t seem that dominant as it was happening. Certainly there was nothing in the debate that Obama will worry about as having been a big blow. I saw McCain winning the debate pretty handily, but I doubt he scored any larger strategic victory.

At least for the view from this blog a major surprise comes from Josh Marshall at TPM and his account of the debate. WaPo ,above, being fairly even handed and a review from the Weekly Standard giving a weak nod to McCain even with a 7 to 1 score are not ‘wow’ reviews. But cringing before the expected acid bath from lefty Josh Marshall finds the following opening to his report.

My take on this debate was that both candidates made their basic arguments clearly. They stuck to the points they’re making on the campaign trail. Neither of these guys are powerful debaters but both held up well. I didn’t see many real gaffes or mistakes.

I said before the debate started that we should expect some outside the box, over the top antics from McCain. But that didn’t really turn out to be true.

Through most of the debate — as I was live-blogging — I was thinking, Hmm, this is pretty much a draw, about what you’d expect with one person arguing McCain’s agenda and another arguing Obama’s. In that sense, I thought it was largely a tie. But McCain’s whole campaign is based on his supposed superior knowledge and judgment on foreign policy. So I think that’s a problem for McCain.

The mild criticism from Marshall translates into victory for McCain. When has a liberal ever been so non-combative in framing a take on a political event between a Democrat and a Republican. Actually it may be an incredible victory for McCain as Marshall really has nothing over the top impressive he can hang on Obama. But perhaps that was expected since most people agreed McCain is stronger in debates while Obama is addicted to a prompter. That may explain the thus far muted response from the left not wanting to concede that Obama’s only positive was not creating a major gaffe beyond the ‘preconditions’ weakness.

An equally surprising analysis comes from NRO (National Review Online) and Jim Geraghty. Opening with everyone probably thought ‘their guy’ won. And then following with a blend of praise and criticism on several points for each candidate. His suggestion to Obama was to use more of the personal story stuff to woo voters as the type of thing that worked for him in the past. A similar comment was shared on the PBS post game right after the debate. And once again McCain is credited for having the skill and experience to handle the job especially in light of the debate’s principle topics for the evening. This is just one more report that is convincing in its assessment. While no one seems to be handing either side a decisive victory with accolades, every one mentions McCain having a command of the topics and the debate. So why isn’t that a big victory? Perhaps cuz everyone knew it from before the debate.

Both Chuck Todd at NBC and Noam Scheiber from The New Republic essentially echoed sentiment like the other reports except Scheiber noted Obama seemed to lay down rather than compete when McCain scored his biggest points. That may be more telling on his ability, or lack of same, to be President. It gives more significance to one of McCain’s remarks that Obama would simply say ‘no’ if meeting with Ahmadinejad while he threatens to destroy Israel. While it seemed at first as simply a way of making light of Obama’s misconceptions of what is required while engaged in foreign policy, viewers may have missed this salient point. Obama may really possess some childish or foolish notions about handling matters of state far more dangerous than the socialist or communist ideals he has been tagged with during the campaign.

While from the left TPM offered a tame response to the debate as cited above, Slate on the other hand seems precariously near a meltdown. Right out of the gate they are conceding victory to McCain and almost bashing Obama for wimping out on them. Thanks to Slate for providing a more typical lefty response. They slam Obama for not using words like ‘we’ or ‘us’ when Obama spoke of the middle class. Hey dumb ass, check Obama’s income disclosure. He does not qualify economically as ‘middle class.’ He would be hammered in at least the conservative press for being a hypocrite if he characterized himself as middle class with a seven figure income.

But the part you can really like is the report from Slate also complained Obama did not do enough pointing out the ‘what a nightmare the last six years have been.’ The last SIX YEARS! Gee Wally, what happened to the first two years of the Bush Administration in the view from the left. Has the kook fringe mania been prolonged to the point they are all suffering from a mental breakdown? All that from none other than Mickey Kaus and even he gives Mccain the nod. Whining that he wanted ‘game changing’ from his Messiah and did not get it. That is not the only thing Kaus doesn’t get.

The post game polls, other reviews not mentioned here and on and on leads this blog to hold with the initial reaction that this debate will do little to influence the campaign except to say that the pundits on the left are conceding victory to McCain and that is perhaps his biggest gain from the debate aside from the fact that Obama did look the rookie. So you can place a seasoned Senator in the White House and understand his positives will outweigh his negatives while leading this country or acquiesce to the flawed political ambition of a candidate with nothing more than an academic approach to understanding the role of President of the United States. It is your choice. It is our future. Let’s not mess this one up. 2008 for McCain and 2012 or 16 for Obama is a safer bet than the big risk of choosing a rookie now. While this blog would never vote for Obama, those of you who would may want to consider waiting until he may be ready. If he cannot maintain a presence in politics until the next Presidential election it will be proof enough he was never Presidential material. And if he really is Presidential material waiting four more years or so is no great risk. Certainly not as great as electing him now and having history prove the theory to be wrong. Think about it.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Public Affairs, wordpress, Politics, campaign, election, McCain, GOP, Democrats, News Media, obama, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.