Since McCain was repeating so many lines we have heard from him over and over I was waiting for the "gates of hell" comment to pop up again and was surprised that it didn't. Perhaps Obama scared him by saying in his convention speech "he (McCain) wont even follow him to the cave where he lives" and the way Obama took a strong stand about attacking Al-Qaeda and killing Bin Laden, even if he has to strike in the mountains of Pakistan if there is good intelligence on the location of any of the top Al-Qaeda network leaders. It was kind of surprising the way Obama took this issue away from McCain in this debate, chasing down Bin Laden HAD been McCain's talking point until recently.
I was wondering when the POW line was going to appear and it was almost over and there it was, one of the last statements McCain made referenced his POW experience even though it seeming had nothing to do with the question he was answering.
I think his debate coaches told him to lay off "my friends" and it might not be wise to use the old "gates of hell" line after it became clear Obama was willing to respond to this tactic. I am sure his campaign managers told him everyone knows the POW story and people are put off by how he had been responding to most questions by starting off "when I was a POW", so they probably told him to lay off the POW line in the debates, but he just couldn't resist so at the last minute he blurted it out...
Although McCain supporters will undoubtedly say he won the debate and Obama supporters will say Obama won, phone polls immediately after the debate show Obama winning the debate handily, winning on every question asked and tied on the topic of national security and managing the military. With McCain having such a high level of foreign policy and military experience it was common logic that McCain could possibly lay a knock out blow on Obama in the foreign policy debate, for Obama to tie McCain on McCain's strongest ground is a huge victory for Obama, not even considering the polls said Obama won the debate clearly on all other fronts.
The biggest complaint I heard about Obama was that he was too soft on McCain. I don't think he was soft, I think he was just about right, though there were some good points he missed making. However, you always risk losing the debate on tone if you are too relentless trying to make your points, so I think Obama did well balancing tone and content. Many pundits said Obama should have hit harder on economic issues, laying out unemployment numbers etc. However, this was the foreign policy debate and I think Obama did a good job keeping the talk about the economy to how it relates to national security. I think when we see the economy debate Obama will hit McCain very hard with the dismal realities of the Bush economy, and stress how the republican congress including senior senator McCain enabled the Bush economy nose dive, and how McCain has been the "deregulator guy" in the senate for 26 years leading to our recent financial train wreck. One major point Obama missed making that did fit well into this debate was how McCain has been given a grade "D" from the Veterans Association with a 20% approval rating for how he has voted against veterans benefits in Congress. The Veterans Association gives Obama a grade "B" with an 80% approval rating for his support of veterans issues in Congress, Obama SHOULD have gotten this fact into the debate, he missed out on that one...
Bottom line, Obama 1 McCain 0, and the best is yet to come...
Irie