The general consensus around the media is that Barack Obama came out on top of the debate against John McCain last Friday.
According to pollster Frank Luntz, "Barack Obama got an early start. John McCain came back when he started talking about accountability in spending. But Obama seemed to have won the debate according to our people."
Andrew Sullivan, Joe Klein, the New York Times, George Stephanopoulos and a host of other mainstream media outlets and pundits all thought Obama won on substance, style, and etiquette.
"A masterful performance tonight, I think," wrote Sullivan. "Obama's best ever debate performance. McCain was fine, but it's wrong for him to attack his opponent at the end. And then he gave a slightly rambling defense of his experience. I give Obama an A - and I give McCain a B."
The editors on my site 'The Daily Banter' did a live blog on debate, and we all thought McCain won handily.
I personally thought McCain was extremely effective in hammering Obama on his home turf, accusing him of ear mark spending, wanting to raise taxes and being a far left liberal. He consistently forced Obama to defend his positions, and spent very little time defending his own. I thought Obama played too nice, didn't counter attack swiftly enough, and kept agreeing with McCain. I wanted to see more anger from Obama -- to show voters how fed up everyone was with Republican rule and Republican philosophy. I wanted him to bring up McCain's atrocious tactics, and humiliate him for running such a shameful campaign.
It turns out, most people didn't.
It seems to me that the event was reminiscent of John Edward's debate with Dick Cheney back in 2004, where Cheney came out on top, but was so unpleasant, it didn't make much difference. Edwards charm and everyman demeanor was enough to keep pundits from declaring an outright winner, and the debate was largely a non issue in the campaign.
McCain's nasty mannerisms and unbridled disdain for his opponent clearly turned voters off, and despite his effective tactics, his strategy was ultimately wrong. I thought they worked, but maybe, just maybe, the American people have finally had enough of them.
Ben Cohen is the editor of www.thedailybanter.com and a contributing writer to www.espn.com and Boxing Monthly Magazine. He can be reached at thedailybanter@gmail.com