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. McCain went on to say that he didn't agree with cutting aid to Pakistan (which Obama never said) and that he disagreed with sending a military strike into Pakistan to find the terrorist hideouts. Something that McCain doesn't seem to understand is that Pakistan has disregarded the US for some time, and therefore hasn't bothered to try to keep out Al Qaida. Sending a military task force into Afghanistan without also sending one into Pakistan is completely pointless. There should be no room for Al Qaida to "wait it out" in Pakistan.
Also, McCain, when he was arguing the difference between his policies and Obama's, repeatedly outright lied on some of Obama's stances. Sure, the records of both candidates speak for themselves, but to lie about your opponent in the middle of a debate doesn't seem too knowledgeable OR capable. Not to mention, McCain was very passive/aggressive through the whole debate. He got flustered, frustrated and confused, and tried time and time again to make jabs at Obama, who was, in the end, fairly unresponsive to those jabs, other than pointing out when McCain was incorrect. The fact that McCain wouldn't look directly at Obama when they were supposed to be responding to each other didn't help either. Through the whole debate he behaved more like a cowed puppy than a presidential hopeful.
I know, there's a whole 90 minute debate and I only addressed a couple of things here, but really, there's not much more to address - the candidates volleyed the same ideas through most of the lead questions. I'm obviously an Obama supporter, but I did try to give McCain a chance. I went into it with an open mind, hoping to hear more from McCain than the same things he's been spouting for the past 2 years. That didn't happen for me, or for a lot of other Americans.