This was a very anticipated debate and I think it lived up to and exceeded my expectations. I was very impressed at Barack Obama’s ability to not only go toe-to-toe with McCain on foreign policy issues, but to even take the upper hand in a variety of moments.

I think McCain played his part well as far as his campaign is concerned. He attacked Obama in a merciless fashion, saying “he doesn’t understand” about Obama multiple times — to the point of annoyance — and pushing his experience to the forefront. Where I think that hurt is that it also showed his age, his possible unwillingness to cooperate with anyone who thinks differently, and it didn’t show a large enough separation from the Bush Administration.

Probably the one thing that stood out for me from this debate the most is the fact that McCain did not look at or address Brack Obama directly at all. He consistantly and adamantly avoided any type of eye contact despite the plea from moderator Jim Lehrer — and the format of the debate — for the two candidates to talk amongst and between themselves. Throughout the night Obama called McCain “John” and looked in his direction while addressing him as “you” and “your policies.” I don’t know how much that will register with the undecided voter, but I lost a bit of respect for McCain because of it.

It think Barack Obama did as well as could be expected, but I also think he went a little too light on McCain. He didn’t mention the Republican majority in Congress for 6 of the last 8 years, didn’t push McCain’s 90% agreement with Bush enough, and did not mention any sort of poll stating the opinion of Americans on the war, which would have been in Obama’s favor. Also his many mentions of agreeing with McCain will be thrown right back in his face, despite each of them having a significant “but…” after them. Those will be blown way out of context but nontheless, they will be used. This is something Barack will have to fix in the next two debates.

I think McCain had the edge in the emotion category with all of his stories. I think people will connect with them, despite the need for some fact checking. Things like Eisenhower’s two letters (no letter of resignation) and Barack’s Afghanistan hearings (Obama is the chairmn of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, so he wouldn’t hold one on Afghanistan, but he did attend running mate Joe Biden’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Afghanisan once) had major factual errors.

And maybe the most important aspect of the debate: NO MCCAIN FLAGPIN. That communist bastard.

Tags: debate, election2008, mccain, obama