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There's a lot of debate between pundits, reporters, and polltakers, on who won the September 26, 2008 presidential debate. It was close, I'll grant them that. No one delivered any knockout punches, no grand epiphanies; really, nothing out of the ordinary. Neither candidate said anything about themselves we didn't already know, with a couple of exceptions.

First, there's a lot of talk about how Obama skirted around the subject of the bailout, and how that seemed to make him less capable somehow. I disagree with that view wholeheartedly, and here's why: Obama has repeatedly stated that while he wants what's best for the economy, he believes the CEO's that caused the need for the bailout should be held accountable, at least to some degree. He's also stated before the debate, quite clearly, that $700bil is a lot of money to shell out. He's all for saving the economy, but he's wary of the bailout. At the debate, he gave his stance on it as best he could: He's in favour of doing something, but he's not sure that a $700bil bailout is the best option, and wants to save taxpayers as much grief as possible in the process. In my opinion, he truly held onto his prior convictions with what he said at the debate. Just because the pundits couldn't interpret it as such, doesn't mean he didn't answer the question.

Second, there's talk of how both candidates made themselves appear equally knowledgeable on the state of affairs, both with US and foreign policy. I don't think that's quite true. McCain only made himself appear knowledgeable by bludgeoning the lead question with euphamisms and stories about his past, and arguing semantics. Of course arguing semantics is going to make a person seem more knowledgeable, but it doesn't make any sort of statement on the matter at hand. I mean, "the difference between strategy and tactics" sounds nice, but in the middle of a presidential debate, do you really want to hound your opponent on something that is, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant, when you should be explaining your own views? McCain also didn't have much to say on the war itsself, but when a lead question came up about refocusing on Afghanistan, what surprised me was when he started talking about Pakistan. Obama had the first response, and said we needed to send in more troops to refocus on weeding out the terrorists in Afghanistan, and that some of those terrorist organizations likely had holed up in parts of Pakistan and needed to be weeded out of there as well.

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