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The Day After: Pundits weigh in on last night’s debate
The consensus seems to be that McCain was on offense for much of the night and did well, but at times looked annoyed and condescending. Obama, on the other hand, appeared poised, affable, and displayed an adequate grasp of foreign policy issues.
David Yepson, Des Moines Register:
It was one of the most substantive debates in recent presidential campaign history and John McCain won it.
The Arizona senator was cool, informed and forceful in Friday’s first presidential debate of the general election campaign.
He repeatedly put Barack Obama on the defensive throughout the 90 minutes session. Obama did little to ease voter concerns that he’s experienced enough to handle foreign and defense policy. That was his number one task Friday night and he failed.
On debating points–and if campaigns are boxing–McCain won. He was the sneering aggressor. He had Obama backpedaling for much of the night on foreign policy. Obama, for his part, missed several chances to counterattack, especially on the economy. Obama’s answers were strewn with annoying “ums” and “ahs” as he played for time to calibrate the least-damaging response.
John McCain was very lucky that he decided to show up for the first presidential debate in Oxford, Miss., Friday night. Because he gave one of his strongest debate performances ever.
Obama emerged as a candidate who was at least as knowledgeable, judicious and unflappable as McCain on foreign policy … and more knowledgeable, and better suited to deal with the economic crisis and domestic problems the country faces.
Obama was smooth, unflappable, and just a little off balance for much of the evening. Worse for him, he seemed inexplicably eager to concede that McCain was right on issue after issue. A candidate determined to appear congenial might do that once, or even twice, but Obama did it eight times.
John McCain was better than Barack Obama in their first presidential debate last night. But the debate produced no knockout sound bites–none I noticed anyway–that might harm Obama’s campaign. So McCain’s win isn’t likely to affect the presidential race.
Obama and McCain looked like equals onstage. McCain turned in a marginally stronger performance, but Obama looked strong enough, and in a tough year for Republicans with Obama leading in the polls, that’s a victory for the Democrat.
David Broder, Washington Post:
There were no knockout blows in the first presidential debate of the fall, but John McCain outpointed Barack Obama often enough to encourage his followers that he can somehow overcome the odds and deny the Democrats the victory that has seemed to be in store for them.
He was slow out of the gate — a broken record on earmarks and spending — but Obama failed to turn the bailout debacle against him. McCain hit his stride in the second half, schooling Obama on counterinsurgency, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia.
The mild consensus in the press file was that McCain won, if not in particularly dramatic fashion. The two insta-polls out — from CBS and CNN — found the opposite: That Obama won by a wide margin. CBS had it 39% to 25% for Obama, CNN 51% to 38%.
Andrew Sullivan, the Atlantic:
Even Obama’s critics will concede that he was McCain’s equal last night. For a lot of undecided voters, the big question has always been whether this new and odd-looking guy could look like an American president, whether he passes Middle America’s gut-check on how a president Obama feels in their psyches. I think Obama passed that test, as Reagan did in 1980 and as Kennedy did in 1960. We forget now how both those iconic presidents were regarded as iffy and perhaps not ready for prime time as candidates.
MORE: Frank Luntz focus group shows Obama helped himself with Independents.
UPDATE: NY Times quotes McCain as saying “When they call it a tie, we win.”
FLASHBACK: CNN makes McCain look senile, Obama heroic
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