The Hits and Ole Misses of the First Presidential Debate
BU blogs the campaign
Well, they finally had at it. On Friday night, at the University of Mississippi, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama clashed for 97 minutes on everything from earmark spending to the difference between preparations and preconditions for meeting foreign leaders.
Who won? As usual, both campaigns claim their man had the better night. Here’s a postdebate ad that the McCain folks put online. And here’s one from the Obama campaign. Now to dissect every word — from Obama’s pronunciation of Pakistan to what exactly McCain muttered under his breath when Obama questioned his willingness to meet with the prime minister of Spain.
There was a lot to to chew on, and the BU bloggers were all over it:
Over at Good People Better Rise Up the verdict was: "Obama won because he didn’t lose, but he surely could have pushed back more in the final stages." That echoes a question that many people were asking, about whether Obama should have agreed so often (and so out loud) with McCain. Did it make him look weak, or bipartisan and open-minded?
Similar questions were raised about McCain’s refusal to look at Obama and his refrain of Obama "not understanding" the issues. "The evidence is clear," according to The Whole Delivery: McNasty was nasty, Obama was classy. At least one insta-poll conducted just after the debate seemed to show that undecideds were not swayed by McCain’s disdain for his opponent.
Both candidates danced around the big topic, the proposed Wall Street bailout, which wedged itself into what was originally planned as a debate exclusively about foreign policy. But the very subject matter gave Obama a chance to get rolling on his attempts to tie McCain to the Bush administration and the country’s current economic woes. Still, once moderator Jim Lehrer’s questions finally swung over to foreign policy, McCain hit his stride. At This is My Party, a group-written blog created by the RedHeadRepublican, the verdict was that "McCain put forth a very strong case for his experience, character, and judgment" and won the contest "easily."
But The Buck Stop disagreed, declaring that "both candidates did an excellent job, maybe the best they could have done," while giving the edge to Obama for "more than pass[ing] the ‘threshold’" of looking presidential. Did voters agree? CNN’s daily "poll of polls" moved only slightly in the debate’s aftermath, nudging Obama to 48 percent, but leaving McCain at 43 percent. Next stop for our BU bloggers is this week’s VP debate. Stay tuned.
Chris Berdik can be reached at cberdik@bu.edu.
Comments & Discussion
Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.