Who Won Last Night's Debate?

Short Version: McCain, but read the details.

Partisans will certainly disagree. Rabid partisans will disagree rabidly, but the edge went to John McCain last night. Here's why and who thinks so:

First, we'll give the devil his due. Slate magazine, decidedly left of center, calls the debate "a tie" : Tie Goes to Obama: Neither candidate won a clear victory.. A tie, huh? Let's see how they come to that!

Obama and McCain looked like equals onstage. McCain turned in a marginally stronger performance, but Obama looked strong enough, and in a tough year for Republicans with Obama leading in the polls, that's a victory for the Democrat.

So, according to Slate, McCain's debate performance was stronger, but when you're a Democrat, just coming in second is a victory? Oooooookay!

Obama did what he needed to do to convince people he could be commander in chief—his challenge for the night.

That is, shall we say, no pun intended...debatable! In foreign policy and all matters military, young Obama looked plainly out of his depth.

Who else called this one? Newsweek, an also slightly left of center publication called it for...McCain! McCain Won. But Will it Matter? The article starts off:

If tonight's presidential face-off between Barack Obama and John McCain were held before, say, the Princeton University Debating Society, it might have been scored a tie.

Whoa! Slate says McCain was stronger, but it was a tie, this guy says McCain won, but it was kind of a tie! Talk about giving your Democratic also ran benefit of the doubt!

But alas: presidential debates aren't scored scientifically. Committed partisans may keep track of everything their guy got right. But undecided swing voters--the ones who will decide the election--don't tally up points. Instead, they link what happens on stage--in a broad, impressionistic sense--to the narratives they'd already heard about the candidates. Which means it's up to the two men performing at the podiums to reinforce the positive, preexisting story lines and disprove the negative ones.

Tonight, John McCain was the more effective performer.

There are two reasons why. The first is that he constantly--obsessively, really--spiked his responses with small but pointed jabs at Obama that unfailingly related to subjects he (McCain) wanted to talk about, whatever the original topic of discussion. This tactic had a dual effect. First, Obama couldn't help but take the bait; he must've said "that's not true," "let me correct the record" or "I just have to respond" a dozen times over the course of the evening. Second, Obama's defensiveness immediately shifted the conversation to McCain's home turf--where it remained, often for minutes at a time.

This Presidential race is a referendum on Barack Obama: Is he worth the risk? Does he have the Right Stuff? Clearly, he has to do more than show up and not make terribly stupid blunders. He had to look Presidential. Unfortunately, for the young machine politician from Chicago, that takes more than creating your own Presidential seal, standing in front of 10 Downing Street as if it were a Hollywood set, it requires gravitas, to borrow a phrase from elections past. Obama doesn't quite make the cut!

Politico's Ben Smith:

The mild consensus in the press file was that McCain won, if not in particularly dramatic fashion. The two insta-polls out -- from CBS and CNN -- found the opposite: That Obama won by a wide margin. CBS had it 39% to 25% for Obama, CNN 51% to 38%. Maybe the difference was expectations.

Or, polls can be spammed. Ask Ron Paul!

Without knowing the sampling involved, I'll wait for a more reliable poll. What Obama needed to do was allay the fears that he could handle the job. His whiny Al Gore impersonation of muttering softly while McCain was speaking didn't endear him to anyone as an adult, much less Leader of the Free World!

Advantage: McCain

Update: Here's a Drudge poll that shows McCain the clear winner 68% to 30%!
Hat tip pparets

Also, I was originally going to cite Mark Hemingway from NRO: Why McCain Won

As for the foreign policy section, it was just no contest. Obama was on the defensive, and frequently sounded naive. McCain pounded him to dust on the preconditions exchange, and all Obama could do was dissemble. The fact that Obama didn't respond at the end to McCain questioning his experience or judgment was especially telling.

Cross posted at Say Anything