Here is a collection of Huffington Post Presidential Debate coverage:
Complete first debate coverage:
Nico Pitney: Reviews Go To Obama
Sam Stein & Nico Pitney on The McCain Smirk:
As the spin of Friday night's debate settled in and both sides staked a claim to victory, one media narrative began to take hold: while Obama may have been over-complimentary of McCain, the GOP nominee was grumpy, mean, and downright contemptuous of Obama, much to his detriment.
A clip circulated by Democrats showed the McCain demonstrating all of those traits: smirking when Obama gave his answers, eyes blinking, unwilling to even look at his opponent.
"If you screw this thing up it isn't like a television program where you can say, "Oh sorry, I'll do better tomorrow," Lehrer told the Huffington Post. "This has the potential for being one of the most exhilarating experiences a person can have and I've had it at times. But it also has the potential for being a negative experience too if you blow it because if you make a mistake as a moderator in one of these debates it could affect who becomes the next president of the United States."
Blogger reactions: Madeline Albright, Arianna Huffington, Sean Penn, and more!
TV Ratings: ABC, Fox News Win:
According to Nielsen Media Research, 52.42 million viewers watched the debate on 11 broadcast and cable networks.
Analysis on Debate Number Two:
Sam Stein: Debate In Words:
Tuesday night's presidential campaign lasted 90 minutes and touched on a wide-range of topics. So what did each candidate spend his time discussing? A look at the words uttered during the affair underscores that Barack Obama was more focused on economic issues, the middle class, health care, change, and energy. The Illinois Democrat even talked about foreign policy topics such as Iran, Afghanistan and terrorism more than McCain. One area of focus that McCain hit at more: his "friends."
Jason Linkins on Health Care Question:
Tom Brokaw put the question to each candidate, "Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?" I'm not sure what McCain meant by, "I think it's a responsibility, in this respect, in that we should have available and affordable health care to every American citizen, to every family member," which seemed to suggest it was a right, but couched in responsibility. Obama was a bit more forthright, averring that it was a "right." His introductory remarks managed to connect his big-picture thought on the matter with both his biography -- a poignant reminder of his mother's final days -- and the kitchen-table issue of the declining economy. I recall that the last Democratic candidate for President who managed these sorts of connections was named Bill Clinton.
Pundit reactions:
Andrew Sullivan:
This was, I think, a mauling: a devastating and possibly electorally fatal debate for McCain. Even on Russia, he sounded a little out of it. I've watched a lot of debates and participated in many. I love debate and was trained as a boy in the British system to be a debater. I debated dozens of times at Oxofrd. All I can say is that, simply on terms of substance, clarity, empathy, style and authority, this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out.It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate. It reminds me of the 1992 Clinton-Perot-Bush debate. I don't really see how the McCain campaign survives this.
Who won? I look forward to your answers to that question. As I did the first time--just 11 days ago, if you can believe it--I did not think this was McCain at his best. He often seemed very self-conscious to me. His breathless voice tonight sometimes seemed strained and unnatural. His determination, evident in the first debate, to avoid his catch-phrase "my friends" disappeared tonight. He repeated himself quite often. But he ended very well. Obama seemed to project the same steady, cool persona we saw the first time out, and which, the polls say, won the debate for him then. But he avoided answering quite a few questions, which may have annoyed viewers. Of course McCain avoided answering some questions too.
Wolf Blitzer: "It's apparent to say that Sen. McCain has some disdain, I think it's fair to say, for Sen. Obama. That was very apparent throughout the course of this debate."
TV Ratings: ABC, CNN Win
236.com: Debate In A Minute
HuffPost Bloggers Weigh In: Erica Jong, Bob Cesca, and more