4-0
Fat lady get your fat ass to the stage and sing your heart out.

This was the first debate I thought Obama won outright. I have no idea why the punditry thought McCain was ahead until the Lewis exchange.

Al Hunt: McCain started out great then turned "schizoid".

Can I just say....WoooHooo!

I love these instant polls - it puts the spin into context before the next days newscycle.

checkmate yahtzee and gin my friends

Given no game changers in this one and the fact McCain still hasn't found his straight talk this time, it's probably over but the paper work by the people on November 4th to make it official.

Say good night John and go back to the senate.

This certainly is encouraging - but I really want to know what independent voters thought (exclusively) -- to see where we are going.

Oh, snap.

Repulican Spin Room:

WHO FARTED!

Those are huge numbers

Here are some more I just heard on CNN.

These numbers might not be exact because I'm going from memory...

Who is better suited to handle the economy:
Obama: >60%
McCain: (missed it, sorry!)

Who spend more time attacking their opponent:
McCain: >80%
Obama: 7%

It was not much of a contest, McCain does not have it and seems he never did. Too many cheap shots: pork, Joe the plumber, Palin, Lewis, Ayers, Acorn, across the board cuts, etc. McCain was firmly entrenched in a bag of kinda gotchas and cliches for the stump and media sound bites. Me think McCain kinda toast!

If there was ever a time to do this...

THIS

Not surprised that Obama won the the 'Did a better job explaining his policies" and McCain won "Attacking"

McCain spent so little time explaining what he would do, and so much time criticzing Obama and/or whining about being called names.

On laughing at your own jokes, the clear winner was McShame.
On number of times mentioning Joe the Plumber, the clear winner was McLame.
On negatives, the clear winner was McPoopypants.
On looking angry and sounding sarcastic, NO CONTEST, the clear winner was McDumbass.

On looking and sounding presidential, the clear winner was Obama.
On appealing to undecideds and independents, the clear winner was Obama.
On policy issues, the clear winner was Obama.

That makes McCaintankerous the winner, 4-3!

Seriously, I feel the same as Kash, relieved.

Josh just posted on McCain's weirdly smug and obnoxious comments about womens health in regards to abortion. That has been McCain attitude throughout the campaign, pandering to the far right base, and totally at odds with his Maverick image. A disaster.

Another similar example: McCain snickered in the last debate characterizing Obama as naive because he wants nuclear power to be "safe and clean, or something" and that McCain had "been on Navy ships with nuclear power, it's safe."

It's pretty clear McCain doesn't have any respect for the other side of the debate, or the other side of the aisle, or anyone beside McCain. Also that he has no idea how to argue to anyone who doesn't already agree with him. And, he's largely regurgitating hard right ideology, well past the expiration date.

Want provisions for women's health in late-term abortion law? McCain knows you're just a "pro-abortion" baby-killer throwing up disingenuous arguments. Concerned that nuclear power be "safe and clean" and again, you're just some tree-hugging hippie, probably a dope smoking dropout too. Because McCain knows none of these issues concern Joe Sixpacks like him.

:rolleyes:

This is the best the GOP has? Pathetic.

The party of ideas? Yeah, bad ideas from decades ago that have now been wholly repudiated. This makes our second Republican led experiment in laissez faire, ending in disaster. Religious fundamentalism and attacking secularism? Anti-intellectualism? Hostility to the environment and renewable energy? Aggressive FP, colonialism, and nation building at gunpoint?

What other ideas have the GOP had in the last 30 years? Seems every one has been a complete disaster.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Obama just gave the old man another lesson.

http://pufferfish.typepad.com/

I can't figure out how to start a blog, so I'll leave my first ever comment here.

Did McCain spend more time talking about Obama's policies or his own? I'd like to sit down with a couple of stopwatches and figure this out, but maybe, just maybe, McCain is hurting because he rarely ever describes his own plans to the American public.

On laughing at your own jokes, the clear winner was McShame.
On number of times mentioning Joe the Plumber, the clear winner was McLame.
On negatives, the clear winner was McPoopypants.
On looking angry and sounding sarcastic, NO CONTEST, the clear winner was McDumbass.

On looking and sounding presidential, the clear winner was Obama.
On appealing to undecideds and independents, the clear winner was Obama.
On policy issues, the clear winner was Obama.

That makes McCaintankerous the winner, 4-3!

Seriously, I feel the same as Kash, relieved.

Halprin: I can see no plausible way for McCain to win. (paraphrase)

Also, on the last thread, theWalrus wrote that Joe the Plumber said on CBS (probably on the webcast): Obama "tap danced almost like Sammy Davis Jr." when he was talking to me.

If true, I think that effectively kills Joe the Plumber as a story.

Sorry guys, my previous post showed up 3 times. I kept getting an error when I hit submit!
My bad.

CNBC, CNN, FOX, and NBC declare O won the debate among the independents. That's what matters.

I fully expect the McCain camp to spin this as a victory and to DEMAND more debates.

I think we can all agree that the first 20 minutes were ALL MCCAIN ALL DAY. He was definitely on his game, however, maybe when we were on John Lewis or when they brought up Ayers but he seemed to slip off and O stayed on the course of fighting for the middle class and came out on top. It's a 90 minute debate and O won about 75 of those minutes.

People probably will remember very little about the words that were spoke. They will remember McCains disturbed look(s), eye rolling, and jumpy movements.

Keep him away from the button!!

Did anyone just watch Soledad O'Brien's snap poll: if you had to vote today, who would get your vote?

It was 16 for Obama and she actually said split down the middle.

The votes for who won the debate were 15-10-1.

How is 15 half of 26? Can she not add?

I love the "Zero" moment.

Obama has tricked everyone measuring him in the domains of conventional wisdom.

I think he's so cool, composed he's beginning to get into the skin of all the psudo-pundits at Fox, Gergen, etc.

I think most voters today saw the visual on the screen and said I cannot take that old, crankly, grumpy negative face for four years.

someone explain to me the strategy behind McCain's eye makeup... He looked like a barely toned down version of Joel Grey in Cabaret... did he think he could shake Obama buy looking like a freakish imp?

The real question left in the election: can McCain go from not knowing how to use a computer to being able to hack Diebold voting machines in three weeks?

So does anybody here not believe Joe the Plumber is not a McCain Campaign plant that they plan to try and make an issue centered around?

Obama should have known something was up and started talking in generalities about other supporters rather than talking to "Joe" as well, because then he became somebody the MSM would obviously get in contact with and the McCain camp knew he's spout off about how much he liked McCain.

EXCELLENT

John McCain does not have the temperment to be President. He cannot control his anger even when it is in his best interest. A McCain Presidency would be dangerous.

Here are all four debates:

CBS Debate #1 (uncommitted)
39% Obama
24% McCain
37% Draw

CNN Debate #1 (all voters)
51% Obama
38% McCain
11% Draw

---------------------

CBS VP Debate (uncommitted)
46% Obama
21% McCain
33% Draw

CNN VP Debate (all voters)
51% Obama
36% McCain
13% Draw

---------------------

CBS Debate #2 (uncommitted)
40% Obama
26% McCain
34% Draw

CNN Debate #2 (all voters)
54% Obama
30% McCain
16% Draw

---------------------

CBS Debate #3 (uncommitted)
53% Obama
22% McCain
24% Draw

CNN Debate #3 (all voters)
58% Obama
31% McCain
11% Draw

---------------------

The CBS Uncommitted numbers are staggering in their change from the last debate:

Obama: 40% --> 53%
McCain: 26% --> 22%
Draw: 34% --> 24%

The uncommitted leaning towards McCain are to a degree sticking to him, though a -4% isn't good.

But Obama not only took that McCain drop off, but yanked 10 points of the "draw" folks over into his column.

I don't think any of us think that was a great Obama performance. He was quite a bit better in the "Town Hall". But McCain got mopped by a pedestrian Obama peformance. That's how bad the disconnect is for McCain at this point.

I think all the other internals we see from these polls are going to be even worse for McCain than these raw numbers.

John

I know things are tough out there. In all 10 of my households, I see people only making $5 an hour, without health benefits, and sometimes less as Cindy and I dock them for being late or uppity. And these people need more tax breaks for oil companies.

CNN poll:

Obama's connection to William Ayers matters to you...

Great Deal 23
Somewhat 14
Not Much 11
Not At All 51

Ayers is old new...let's start the clock now on the Reverend Wright attack watch....

I'd vote for anyone, even Bush if I don't ever have to see the faces of McFalin on television ever again.

He creeps me out. She scares...

For all his nastiness, McCain does not know how to deliver an attack, he shoots his whole Ayers/Acorn load in one rambling stream-of-consciousness launch, and Obama snatches it from him, explains it to the audience and shoots it all down so smoothly that McCain is left fumbling for a follow-up. What drives the wingnuts crazy is that Obama just doesn't come across like the afro-headed free-Mumia T-shirt wearing black nationalist radical they want the public to see him as. Now they know how liberals felt when Reagan seemed impervious to criticism in the eyes of the majority of Americans

What's with McCain using Clinton as cover for his Ayers attack?

I cringed when McCain brought up his buying the mortgages line. Nobody wants to hear that. It is ill-thought out stupidity. Much better to rework the mortgage terms, he probably lost credibility on that one.

Stan Greenberg in Colorado said the respondents felt Obama "won" and that the results were "more decisive than either of the last two." That's a reference to Greenberg's previouon the favorability ratings. Although the focus group was officially undecided, it leaned towards McCain. Here were the favorability-unfavorability ratings for each candidate at the start:

McCain: 54 favorable / 34 unfavorable

Obama: 42 favorable / 42 unfavorable

Here's what the ratings looked like after the debate:

McCain: 50 favorable / 48 unfavorable

Obama: 72 favorable / 22 unfavorable

It was hard to stay in the same room as that anger. I kept thinking "go home old man." And the format was geared to make him as comfortable as possible: sitting for 90 minutes in a comfy chair with a sympathetic moderator and good timing.

Go home old man, we have had enough of your angry seething sputtering. ew

McCain won unsurprisingly in one category, and credit must be given where it is due:
CNN POLL: Who spent more time attacking during the debate?

McCain – 80%
Obama – 7%

That's right you guys! Joe the plumber is goin' to sleep and he's for McCain! Confirmed by MSNBC... Eat that!

I thought when McCain started going off on women's "health" as not a viable excuse for a late term abortion that he must be confused and still think he is running for the nomination of the Republican party. The only people he was reaching with this extremism ideology would be the most conservative right of his party who are already voting for him. Somebody should tell McCain that he's in the general election now.

McCain scares me. After watching him tonight I thought he made Palin look like a strong candidate...but not really. They are both shockingly weak and certainly unable to lead during the worse financial crisis since the Great Depression.

It was so satisfying to watch how PISSED John McCain was about getting outspent by Barack Obama. Throughout my life, Republicans have ALWAYS been able to outspend Democrats, sometimes by as much as 3:1 in the senatorial and congressional elections. Republicans have always had more money to pound out their putrid messages of hate and fear.

Not this time. And it's been because so many people have gotten behind BO's candidacy and been willing to support it. For the first time in history, it's our guy who's got the most money, not the Republican fat cat's guy. We have a candidate we can feel proud of, and we can be proud of our efforts too.

It's not over, 19 days to keep working and keep donating. If we finish this off strong, like our candidate will, on the night of Nov. 4th, we'll be able to raise our glasses and toast President-Elect Obama. God, that will be sweet.

I gots a feeling that McMajorShit will not show up for O's inaugural. Perhaps he'll join W. in cutting brush at the ranch north of Fort Hood [and they can give each other a big hug at 11 a.m. (noon, D.C. time)].

I don't know how many people watched CNN when they "broke" their poll results.

For the half hour prior to that, the massive group of Talking Heads (must be a dozen) were split between the Repubs like Bennent shilling the Party Line while many of the rest were flashing some of their Tire Swinging habits. They so badly want this to be close down the stretch.

Then Anderson tossed it to Campbell to roll out the Poll. Massive Obama ass stomping.

And you could hear a pin drop.

And the gears grind.

Despite Anderson indicating the 40/30/30 Dem/Rep/Ind split closely mirror the country's 36/26 or so split, you did see people want to cling to 40/30 being favorable to Dems.

Then Anderson tossed in that other networks were were showing similar things, which Gurgen nodded to and Tobin pointed out that CBS had an even bigger gap in favor of Obama. More pin dropping silence as reality slipped into the CNN Spin Room mentality.

After the break and having a chance to recover, Alex was still shilling for McCain, but no one other than the Base is buying the bullshit. He even tried to work the Joe The Plumber storyline.

The they had more internals:

Expressed their views more clearly:
66% Obama
25% McCain

"Wow!"
-Anderson

More time attacking opponent
80% McCain
7% Obama

They had the graphic wrong on that, but Brown read it correctly

Stronger Leader
56% Obama
39% McCain

More Likeable
70% Obama
22% McCain

King, as Nate pointed out on the 538, tried to Tire Swing "skeptisim" that the numbers skewed for the Dems *despite* it already being told to the viewers no less than *three times* that both the Dems and Repubs were above their Country wide numbers by the same %.

No one was quite buying it.

It's like a funeral... to the point of being wonderfully entertaining. :)

John

What in the heck did Josh think he saw? I think Obama was much stronger than last week, during which I was left yawning.

I initially hated these snap polls. But I'm starting to love them. They just keep showing how these so called "expert" analysts know jack shit.

Would someone please explain to me what the McCain advisors were thinking.

McCain finally has his base (rightward leaning ~40%). He has no way to get the left wing (~40%). The only thing left was the center 20%, and all of the inside numbers in the previous debates said that this middle was turned off by the attacks, didn't care about Ayers stuff, etc., etc.

As Obama's advisors understood, this fall was all about the middle 20%. His challenge was to look cool, calm, and presidential, and he would peel away the middle, one undecided at a time. And he did just that!

But McCain's advisors told him to feed more red meat to the base. He came out in the last debate with more attacks! That just wasn't going to get the majority of that last 20%. What it could cost the repubs is a fillibuster-free senate. If things keep going like they are, heck Mississippi and Georgia senate seats are in play. Who woulda thunk it?