Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Debate, Round 2

CBS - Uncommitted voters went with Obama 40% to 26%


CNN - Obama


MSNBC - Obama (but this one seems particularly skewed)


Fox News - Obama


Media Curves - Independents for Obama 52% to 34%


BBC - didn’t really have anything on their own but linked to Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe who called it a tie which gives it to Obama.


My Take -

I thought it was ugly. I thought Obama avoided answering some questions and he needs to stop doing that. It is a strength for him. While some politicians do better by moving the question into a direction better suited to what they want to talk about, it is worse when he does that because he can specifically answer the question and should.

I thought McCain attacked Obama too much with things that were easily responded to, such as his arguments about Obama “invading” Pakistan or his record on tax increases. 

I thought McCain started off looking angry and ended up looking really flustered and nervous. The weird jokes he made, the dropping of the microphone into his hand when he finished a question... these are the actions of someone who is really nervous. 

I think McCain’s really worried, and I think it’s going to get really, really ugly. 


The Rational Moderate

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I did not watch the whole debate but from what I saw I have the following 2 observations. 1)Obama did nothing to further his purpose by his responses. He just kind of sat back on his heels and fielded softball questions. 2)McCain further hurt himself by not delivering the knock out debate performance that was expected. The 'town hall' debates are supposed to be his forte but he really fell flat. Could have something to do with the nervousness you mentioned.
With that being said, I do have to say that Obama won this debate but not by what he did but rather by what McCain did not do.