Thoughts on the First Debate

On Friday night, Barack Obama and John McCain met for the first time together to debate foreign policy at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS.

Here's my thoughts: no one won, which means no one lost. Which means that McCain didn't do what he needed to do.

McCain came into this debate down about four percentage points nationally, and needed to make up some serious ground after the economic crisis and his unpopular and ineffective (and strange) suspension of his campaign. And by essentially tying Obama Friday night, he didn't accomplish that. Here's my take on how it went, step by step.

Let's start with the way they carried themselves.

Obama looked and sounded crisp, and addressed the camera and McCain directly, and mentioned the middle class several times. From the polls that were done during and directly after the debate, people generally thought he was more in touch with their needs.

McCain looked and sounded old. At least for the first half of the debate, he looked and sounded a lot like a corpse. His attempts at jokes were feeble and dated, and he made a few references (something about bears in Montana) and an old Reagan reference that no one under 50 would understand.

He started to look more alive as they got to the topic of foreign policy, but it did remind of the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate, at least in appearance. The contrasts were remarkable. Old and young. White and black. Conservative and liberal. The past and the future, etc.

Now, let's get down to how they responded to the questions.

Obama's initial responses to moderator Jim Lehrer's lead questions concerning the economy. He came across as knowledgeable and prepared, which was exactly what he needed to do. The economy is the issue that the vast majority of Americans care about and many viewers (i.e. undecided voters) probably lost interest after that.

McCain did not start off very strong on the economic front, constantly mentioning pork barrel spending and earmarks, which, frankly, the American people don't really care about that much right now.It took him a while to warm up. But once he did, on the topic of foreign policy, he really stuck it to Obama (with the exception of Iraq), often repeating "you don't understand." For example, on the topic of meeting with foreign leaders without preconditions, McCain frankly made Obama look naive. He also controlled the agenda of the debate in the entire second half.

When Lehrer asked where the two candidates stood on the $600 billion bailout, they both avoided the question entirely. The way they see it, it is way too politically risky to take a side on this issue before Congress approves it.

The only moment in which Obama took control on foreign policy is when he said that McCain was wrong about the Iraq War, wrong about us being greeted as liberators, wrong about Sunni-Shiite relations, etc. That was actually the most memorable sound clip from this fairly uneventful debate.

After the debate was over, Joe Biden gave the Democratic response, like a vice presidential nominee is supposed to do. Sarah Palin turned down the invitation to do the Republican response, probably because the McCain campaign was too worried about what she's say after her horrible, horrible interview with Katie Couric. So Rudy Giuliani gave it instead.

The bottom line about this debate is this. If you were for Obama going in, you're still for him. If you were for McCain going in, you're still for him. And if you were undecided going in, you're probably still undecided.

The only thing that might have changed is that undecided voters might see Obama as even more strong on the issue they're most concerned with: the economy. Undecideds also may see Obama as more presidential and more ready to lead after this debate, seeing him go toe-to-toe with McCain on his best issue.

But overall, this won't be a game-changer. And that is bad news for McCain going forward. He has trailed Obama by similar margins before, but he's always had time to make it up. Now, as we get closer and closer to election, there is less time to make up the difference. Each day, there are less undecided voters and less people's opinions to sway.

And this debate--focused on foreign policy--was supposed to be his strong suit. Friday night was the night he was supposed to at least cut the gap a little in the polls, but so far they are showing that nothing has changed. McCain has to do something in order to salvage his campaign soon, or we could potentially be looking at an Obama landslide come November 4.