Informed Speculation

McCain had better hope so…just opening a thread for now, in case anyone wants to comment…more later…

UPDATE 8:06 p.m.: Didn’t take long for disappointment to creep in…McCain keeps flogging the mortgage principal renegotiation and slams the market again…and Obama appeals to protectionism by slamming tax breaks for ‘companies that ship jobs overseas’ (i.e., that make smart economic decisions where appropriate)…

UPDATE 8:12 p.m.: McCain actually scored a few points for a change, by pointing out the ‘wealth distribution’ (ahem, socialism (cough*)) behind Obama’s tax scheme, with his defense of the small businessman, and with his call for no tax hikes, period…

UPDATE 8:14 p.m.: How is Obama going to ensure the bailout plan is structured properly as President? It’s already passed! The money will be mostly spent before he is sworn in!…

UPDATE 8:18 p.m.: McCain is doing pretty well tonight, actually – he even had the nerve to name programs he would cut, unlike Obama, who dodged…

UPDATE 8:21 p.m.: He scored again – “Senator Obama, I’m not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago!” – Bam! Where has this man been?…

UPDATE 8:23 p.m.: Obama scored a bit here, too…it’s true that he has stood up against the teachers’ union, and that’s a good thing…

UPDATE 8:28 p.m.: Pow! Zoom! Kablooie! – McCain turned the negative question on its head and hit Obama – hard, including the John Lewis comments and Obama’s unforgivable flipflop on campaign finance…I like, I like…

UPDATE 8:40 p.m: Well, McCain did it – he went for Ayers. I don’t think it worked, and I think he blew his momentum…the story of the campaign in a nutshell…

UPDATE 8:47 p.m.: McCain has been strong, otherwise…he’s scored again with his jibe on unilaterally renegotiating NAFTA…

UPDATE 8:54 p.m.: Obama is not a free-trader – he may say he is, but he isn’t. I’ve seen into his eyes, and I’ve seen Cesar Chavez…no way, no how, will I vote for this man…

UPDATE 9:07 p.m.: Good defense of individual choice by McCain on the insurance issues – and a nod to the Coalition of the Chillin’ days – yeah!…

UPDATE 9:14 p.m.: McCain scored again on the abortion issue and Obama clearly dodged and is uncomfortable…

UPDATE 9:17 p.m.: This has not been Obama’s night – how many times has he posited a supposed this vs. that, then said “I think we should do both”? And how many times has “both” included more government spending?

Bottom line…I have been fair throughout this election, as my regular readers know, in calling it as I see it, and I have often been heavily critical of McCain. I have basically written him off, and I said openly that Obama won the first two debates. However, McCain won this one going away…now, McCain doesn’t speak smoothly, and Obama surely does…so I don’t know if the snap polls will reflect it, and McCain DID make a mistake in going for the Ayers bit…but I give this one to McCain by a good margin…

UPDATE 9:33 p.m.: George Stephanopolous also agreed that this was McCain’s strongest debate, and he also criticized the decision to go after Ayers…

UPDATE 9:37 p.m.: The CNN panel also agrees that it was McCain’s night, for the most part…and they also agreed that the Ayers exchange was a mistake…

UPDATE 10:33 p.m.: As I feared, the polls are apparently going to give this debate to Obama anyway. Style almost always wins over substance, and this appears to have been the case here, because I don’t know how anyone can objectively say that Obama won this one…

UPDATE 10:40 p.m.: It looks like most polling is confirming that the Ayers attack was a mistake…I’m on the record, even prior to the debate, in saying that it has been a disastrous decision by the campaign to give in to the base’s demands for negativity…and in this case, it lost the debate (in the public’s eyes), but more importantly, it almost surely lost the election (not tonight’s Ayers reference, but the whole negativity of recent weeks)…