He was strong early and through the middle, but didn’t finish strong. But that may be enough to reach the casual voter whose attention span may have waned by that point anyways.

First point; McCain made some excellent points, as you noted already. I actually applauded him several times. I really liked it when he told Barry that “I am not President Bush…”. McCain did not use the sledge hammer I wish he did, but I also know he is a gentleman. Barry never did rebuke his supporters about the “racist” charges against McCain/Palin. Obama is good at shoveling his “wish list” but, let’s face it, you and I will all be paying through the nose for Obama’s socialist agenda. Secondly; Obama looked arrogant and overly-confident. I am listening to the “panel” on Fox News talking about how “presidential” Obama is. That’s arrogance, people, not presidential. No matter what McCain says or does, the media will not give him a fair assessment. Obama is a radical socialist, friend of terrorists, support of a Kenyan genocidal maniac, abortion advocate and fully incapable of being an effective leader. His is a puppet and nothing more. McCain was the elderstatesman, experienced, strong and ready to lead.

I couldn’t bring myself to watch the debate. I know where they both stand and I just get frustrated watching the debates playing the “who’s gonna gaffe first” game.

Did McCain finally fight? Did he make his point? Is he fighting like a conservative or is he still whimpering like a moderate?

Obama should be easy to beat. Everyone I talk to is acting like Obama becoming president is a forgone conclusion. For those of you who watched….did anything change tonight?

McCain didn’t finish. By far he was winning the debate, but he failed to land the so called killing blow. I think that may be why so many polling groups are leaning Obama, ie: Luntz, because there was no finality to it. That and Obama really made a comeback with the education topic.

http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com/

People vote in a President who most addresses the major weakness of the preceding President.

Clinton was a cad whom you wouldn’t trust with your daughter.

Voters go for Bush.

Bush has been an incredibly poor and awkward communicator.

I hope my theory is wrong.

*More scare tactics from Obama — “Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance”

I sure hope not scare tactics. I’d like to think that McCain would follow through on his pledge to roll back Roe through his SCOTUS appointments.

John McCain needed to get more likable in the campaign and had never been able to do so.

Americans in large part still vote on who they like. They liked Reagan, Clinton, and Bush because they would like to be around them at bar or watching football game and McCain has never appealed there. I don’t think u can fake that either; McCain has many rough exteriors from his military days

I am just down tonight it seems like McCain gave it his all and even Fox commentators seem down

Sorry but I fet like obamas ear had to be mentioned, it was truly horrifying.

mclame should have called him out on being all talk. what has he done since being elected.
he’s so generous, made more than 250k, how much did he even give to charity.
also, if his brother can live in a box, he can raise a million for odinga, and get away with 4 votes against infant protections, this man need not worry about highbrow economic or foreign policy issues as possible roadblocks. i’d be more concerned with the accuracy of polling methodology and the words socialism and acorn.

I am so glad for this board. I had to even shut off Fox News. Everyone is sold out to NObama – they said he looked presidential. He looked like the arrogant, cocky empty suit he is. I thought McCain made great points and won on the points, not on eloquence but points.

Since I do understand what’s going on I’m voting for McCain. However truth is not what’s going to determine the President this time because the truth is obscured by McModerate and the Media.

After watching yet another boring debate from McCain I know Palin can and will make a better case for conservatism than McCain ever will. His “strength” of bipartisanship simple blurs the line between liberal vs. conservative governance. In this environment we needed bold broad lines being drawn to hold off a liberal wearing moderate clothing. McCain simply can not do that.

The only President out of the four I truly want is Palin, and I’m voting for her more than McCain.

Palin/Jindal 2012

McCain didn’t follow through, so he didn’t “finish”. “Winning” these bathetic rituals isn’t good enough any longer, and McCain clearly won. You have to produce sound bites for the next 24 hours, and that would have required knocking balls out of the park. There were balls to be knocked, too, but for whatever reason McCain resisted every time Obama threw a low hanging one.

I cannot believe McCain didn’t call Obama on Fannie and Freddie and Barney and Christopher. That would have tied the economic issue to character. McCain started but didn’t go there. I don’t know why; perhaps that is from being in the senate too long to want to go for the jugular. And that is one of many examples of the failure to follow up.

In McCain’s defense, given the incredible and unhidden left-wing media bias this cycle, even if he had produced sound bites there was no certainty they would have been aired as in years past.
In a way, that is the most depressing aspect of this whole race.

Can someone please help me understand why Luntzs’ Duntzs show up after every debate.

I’ve been watching these debates on Fox since Bush/Gore. Has the republican ever won in the eyes of these jokers.

Honest to God, i am so happy the debates are over for another 4 years. Although, I will say this. After watching Luntzs’ Duntzs, I feel better about myself!

On the topic of education: I wish that McCain would’ve told Obama that we don’t need any early, early childhood education/indoctrination. (He did point out that HeadStart hasn’t really been all that successful, though.)

If I had young children now, I wouldn’t be sending them to public school. Not with liteture books showcasing Obama and teachers promoting his talking points.

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THE PHILLIES ARE IN THE WORLD SERIES!!!

WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Luntz’s Dunce’s

Fox wonders why their ratings are declining & continue to hire blond newswomen

I can tell you why your ratings are declining You’ve hired Dick Morris & Frank Dunce who are NEVER EVER RIGHT

For him to win big enough to really make a difference, McCain needed a major blunder from Obama.

While I think McCain did better, Obama did well enough.

There are still 3 weeks for Obama to screw up.

Every debate, you guys act like McCain hit a home run. Then every debate, the snap polls come out and give it to Obama about 60/40, and McCain creeps a little further downward in the national numbers over the next week or so.

One has to wonder why McCain isn’t winning handily, since apparently he’s schooled Obama in every single debate to hear you guys tell it.

“you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability”

Richard Nixon proposed something like this. Milton Friedman supported a negative income tax a.k.a. refundable tax credits. What is the problem?

*More scare tactics from Obama — “Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance”

I thought this was a Republican talking point — don’t McCain and Palin make a big deal about wanting to ban almost all abortions?

What I find depressing is that we are basically voting on how much socialism we want this election.

Health Care. There is now no debate on whether or not to provide universal health care, it’s been decided. It’s now only how we do it and who pays for it. For example, give everyone a $5,000 tax credit means all those people who pay no income tax get that credit as well. And this will turn into tomorrow’s entitlement program. As healthcare costs rise, Congress will need to pass new legislation to raise that credit. A tax credit like that just means taxpayer money is being transferred to those who don’t pay taxes.

Mortgage bailouts. Both candidates want to bail out people who made bad choices and purchased a home they couldn’t afford. OWNING A HOME IS A DREAM, NOT A RIGHT. When did that concept change? McCain says that if we don’t bail these people out, that house next to us may be foreclosed and pull down property values. I got news for you, if the person living there can’t afford a mortgage payment on their own without government help, they certainly can’t afford the routine and unexpected costs required to upkeep a home. It’ll turn into a neighborhood blight anyway. Might as well let the bank sell it at whatever the market decides it is worth. The new owners will then take better care of it because hopefully future home sales require proof of ability to pay for it.

The Book of Revelation talks about seven years of tribulation followed by a 1000 years of peace. Right now I’m thinking Obama should win, let’s deal with 4 years of economic turmoil, followed by at least 8 years of prosperity when the next Reagan rises, as happened after Carter’s four years. Yes, I’m certainly not the first person to hold this view. I’m just starting to think it has merit.

… just hold the line on 60.

Sorry, hadn’t had chance to read the comments yet, just finished watching DVR copy of Debate and couldn’t wait…

THERE HE (Obama) WENT AGAIN…
On EVERY ISSUE the first thing out of his (Obama’s) mouth was SPEND MORE MONEY!!!!!!!

Education, again… SPEND MORE MONEY…. Never any Reform, never any commitment to excellence… ALWAYS… SPEND MORE MONEY…

Even in the Question on WILL YOU CUT PROGRAMS… He WANTS TO SPEND MORE MONEY ON PROGRAMS….

Everything is MORE MONEY and GOVERNMENT CONTROL as McCain rightly had a Freudian slip and called The O “MR. GOVERNMENT!”

The ONLY CHANGE that Obama preaches, is that YOU WILL ONLY BE LEFT WITH CHANGE (pennies only most likely) UNDER A OBAMA BIN-BIDEN ADMINISTRATION!!!

About the idea of socialized medicine?
Insuring 47 million “quote un quote” uninsured
Americans will throw the system into chaos.
I would imagine the system would break completely
and then ONLY the people with money are going to
get real health care anyway. Those un-insured folks
are going to wish the government was here to help them.
The strain that local governements will be under will be
to much to bear. I would imagine you will see doctors with real talent flee to places where they can money and retire themselves someday. If Americans want free health care they should earn it. Stop smoking, drinking, taking drugs and having un-protected sex and then we can talk about it.

Nothing happened tonight to change the trend. Tonight was the last chance for McCain on his own to change the trend. Barring some kind of big outside game changer it looks bad for McCain.

The best argument left is stressing the danger of having all power concentrated in one party. Independents are wary of the crazies on both sides, who get empowered when the checks and balances break down because they are overriden by partisan party discipline.

It might help McCain. It might help some of the congressional candidates. It’s worth trying.

McCain’s only hope now is the $160 million he and the RNC have on hand for the last three weeks.

Let’s not fool ourselves here: McCain won. But he failed again to hit the score he needed to win the series.

And now he has to rely on the air campaign to win it for him. The only problem is that Obama is not lacking for the money to compete on that field … so it’s really all about who hits harder.

And unfortunately, it would seem that McCain just doesn’t have it in him.

Joe was on Fox earlier in the day… Why didn’t they call him and ask what he thought of the Debate are part of the Post-Debate… That would’ve been worth something, and his answers would’ve been OBVIOUS in our favor and repeatable for days to come…

I believe McCain did quite well, as evidenced by the MSM (which always says the Democrat won the debate) calling this the “Joe the Plumber” debate.

As pointed out in Erik’s thread, Obama is seeming to “coast.” He’s trying to coast into the presidency in much the same way he coasted into the nomination. However, there are no superdelegated for the DNC to pester into voting for him.

McCain seems to know this race will be decided on Nov. 4. In this debate, much ammunition was displayed that can be used in the final 3 weeks of this campaign. I hope that the McCain campaign – & those of us who support him – use this ammunition wisely. If we get the message out, refute the assertions of Obama & his supporters while putting them on the defensive regarding Obama’s record & proposals, we just may have President McCain & VP Sarah Palin! We also have to work & get people who will vote for McCain/Palin out to the polls to vote. GOTV is going to be critical.

Grading the Final Presidential Debate, an almost fair Time.com via Yahoo story here.

It will be interesting which bits get replayed over and over these last nineteen days…

this has been his problem throughout his career. lack of accomplishments, qualifications, achievements — he has to substitute lying, cheating, stealing votes, intimidation, etc.

Yawn. McCain knows what he has to do the next 20 days and he will do it.

Hold Virginia, Ohio, Florida. Pick up Pennylvania, New Hampshire, 2nd Maine, Wisconsin, Minnesota.

AOL has a story and poll questions here (non-scientific). It shows that in the view of over 250,000 people, it was a tie. But based on all the debates, understand McCain won because this was his best so far.

Prediction: John McCain picks up 2-3% on Obama and drives this election back into the margin-of-victory path by Monday.

More interesting is that AOL asked which moderator did the best and which the worst. RedState-ers should not be surprised by the bipartisian response.

Who do you think won the debate?
Barack Obama 48%
John McCain 46%
Neither 6%

Did the debate affect how you will vote?
No 76%
Yes 22%
I don’t vote 2%

How do you rate McCain’s performance?
Excellent 45%
Fair 31%
Poor 24%

How do you rate Obama’s performance?
Excellent 47%
Fair 33%
Poor 20%

Which debate moderator did the best job?
Bob Schieffer in debate 4 66%
Tom Brokaw in debate 3 12%
Jim Lehrer in debate 1 11%
Gwen Ifill in debate 2 11%

Which debate moderator did the worst job?
Tom Brokaw in debate 3 42%
Gwen Ifill in debate 2 35%
Jim Lehrer in debate 1 17%
Bob Schieffer in debate 4 6%

John McCain looks ME and mine right in the eyes and says to ‘Joe Plumber’, “if you’re listening”. Obama counteracts by looking ME and mine right in the eyes and says to ‘Joe Plumber’, “if you’re out there”?!

IF WE’RE OUT HERE??!!! DID I HEAR THAT RIGHT? DID I GET THE QUOTES WRONG??!! WHAT??!

Barak,

We ARE here. Your self delusional God-man fantasies aside-we DO exist.

we can at least take solace that McCain did great in this debate. But IMHO he came off far to angry too often. That will not play well in Pieoria. He was good on substance, not great, he stuck it to Barack when needed but didn’t go in for the kill.

The independents that we’ve been hemoraging will start to flock back after this debate, but not in the droves we need. Im sad to say this election may be over without a KO punch tonight.

One other thing someone was writing about, if McCain had fantastic internals I cant see how we would have pulled out of MI.

What is everyones problem with anger? Seriously, why are people so turned off by a little passion? He is running for POTUS after all.

This election is far from over, and anyone who expected a KO was dreaming. Slow and steady wins the race. Let the slow leak of radical associations continue to fill Obamas boat until it’s sunk. Three weeks is a long time when you have as much to hide as Obama.

Everyone should also continue to pray and do what you can to help Sarah get in to office.

…excessive blinking and lizard tongue didn’t exactly help him among independents and undecideds. I’m just being real here: it was ugly.

Tim sweety, dont go to bed. Where in the 1st district….ohhhh I found it.

[Just a note: As a site admin, I cooperate fully iwth all police requests for information about trolls. – NS]

Spread the word… Expose the Thruth about Obama the Socialist….

Fight Socialism! Fight the Brainwashing! Fight Obama’s Hidden Anti-American Plans.

Now is the time for us to go and win this thing.
Let the media wail away about Bradley this or that.
Let the lefties keep on hammering away at Trig Palin.
They can do anything they want, but we have an election to win.
McCain did great.
Obama stank up the place.
Obama is a suit looking for an idea to borrow.
McCain is a patriot and leader.
Now is the time to close the deal.

They have been drip drip dripping left slowly and feeding the viewers a little more and then a little more Democrat viewpoints. And they don’t hire many moderate Democrats, they are always the far left view points. The panel after the debate was depressing. And, this is the channel that has fooled so many into thinking they are even right of center. They are truly a part of the MSM Obama supporting machine.

Redstate is the first place I check for articles each morning. I know that I am with like minded people here, who are not in love with McCain, but realize just how terrifying an Obama presidency would be for so many reasons. Some of the most recent posts remind me of an element that claim to be “conservatives” and “patriots” who go to any site that supports McCain or Republicans and attack any post that is pro-McCain or pro-Palin. They just have to keep reminding you of just how bad McCain is and remind everyone of everything he has done against the Republicans and conservatives. They are still onto Bush Derangement Syndrome. They have driven every McCain or Republican supporter off some sites. Please do not allow that to happen here at Redstate.

The problem with the election at this stage is that Obama has now become legitimate. He’s been on stage long enough for most not to want to go back to the fundamental questions with him, that of experiennce and record and associations. We are now focusing on his coolness and smoothness as he explains how he will “spread the wealth.” The talk is how serious and careful he was in making the case…not that he was dead wrong in his ideology or was lying through his teeth! McCain is hacking away but there’s too much armor to make any kind of dent. But never before have we had the unspoken issue of race to contend with. We don’t know how the electorate will act in the privacy of the voting booth. Here’s where Barack may die the “death from a thousand cuts.” So it’s better to have won on points and still be out-cooled.

These snap polls are a complete joke. Let me ask anyone hear ad RedState. Has a republican ever won a snap poll. I believe not.

Yet we’ve had Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43. Funny how these stupid idiotic snap polls mean nothing, a big fat nothing.

Once upon a time there were two things we could count on, taxes and our own death. Let us add a third certainty. The media will distort everything in favor of democrats and especially his Highness.

Anybody catch that? JM inadvertently called Obama “Senator Government” before correcting himself to “Obama”, but what a powerful Freudian slip.

If properly played out as a sound bite it could be as powerful as Tiger Woods’ “Nike moment” a couple of years ago.

The best attack is that Obama inscludes in the 5% that will have their taxes raised and spread around, plumbers and those better off than plumbers.

Look we all know that Obama talks eloquently. And, anytime that he talks people that don’t actually listen think that he knows what he is talking about. Last night John McCain WON that debate. He actually kept Obama on the defense. In fact Obama looked very perplexed 75% of the time.

At the end of the day we need to look at what we have here: 1 ticket that consists of 2 Lawyers, and the other ticket that has 2 individuals with diverse backgrounds.

I can actually see that if the lawyers win, they will spend their term trying to prosecute the first administration, and getting nothing done. This needs to be put out to the voters!

And your title sounds like one of those bad Viagra commercials.

This is McCain being, well, McCain. Who did you expect, Ronald Reagan?

McCain almost always attacks and regroups. I believe he finds unabated attacks distasteful and not the sign of a good executive. It also puts your opponent on the defensive; something McCain achieved for the first time last night. For the most part, Obama floundered and dissembled- something he has tried hard not to do in each debate (we had a sparse return of the “eh, ah, ah, ah”). That is good for McCain, so long as the outlining and proper labeling he started last night continues unabated.

Obama steady and looked Presidential? Were people actually listening and trying understand the meaning of what was said? He was speaking of the biggest welfare program in our nation’s history- redistributing wealth to over one third of our population who don’t pay taxes. He spoke of nationalizing our healthcare with forced choices, fines and other tools more aligned with the IRS. All an appeal to the “middle class”? Sounds like a recipe for economic disaster, not the opine of someone who falsely represents himself as the better fiscal choice.

What were those expecting a “game changer” looking for and who in heavens name, given past history of Mr. McCain would articulate such ridiculous conjecture? Fox news was especially bad in this regard last night and, as much as I respect Krauthammer, he let a rare moment of emotion outstrip intellectualism.

McCain sat in a prisoner of war camp all those years. He was not leading the escape unless everyone, and I mean everyone, would be able to come along. It is the perfect metaphor for his personality and career in general. McCain is a marathon runner, not a sprinter and will pace himself showing the strong, steady leadership and good judgment which are his hallmarks over the next several weeks. He must indeed follow the successful strategy of past elections which demand McCain continues to define who Obama is- a virtual eloquent mouthpiece for high taxes, big government, wealth redistribution and dependency which this country can now, more than ever, not afford.

and that FDT looked tired and listless during primary debates, thought McCain cleaned Obama’s clock last night. She caught all the umms, and uhhs, of the Messianic one and even my 18 year old daughter, political novice that she is, looked at me at one point while His Slickness II bobbed and weaved and said “Is he ever going to answer a question?”

Just thought I’d share the viewpoints of a couple of non-political junkies who see things through different eyes than their politically obsessed hubby/daddy.

But from what I am seeing here from people it looks like he is setting up the ball for the game winning score. Now McCain needs to make that final push of Obama doesn’t think we the people can so a damn thing without government up our ass, show Obama for the stealth candidate that he is, and how everything Obama is talking about would do unreparable harm to us within the next three weeks and he scores the game winning score. This election needs to be played like a football game, not a baseball game and the long ball.