The debate

I never trust my own judgment about who won a presidential debate. After all, I thought Nixon won the Kennedy debate hands down.

Last night, right after the debate, even though I had thought Obama won on substance and McCain on feistiness, I sort of concluded that the public would probably see this debate as a draw. Then came the pudits on MSNBC who universally seemed to think that McCain won hands down. One even said McCain was already running the "you're right, John" ads. So, I went to bed in a very grumpy mood. Now I see that the early polling of voters suggests they think Obama won hands down. Despite that, many of the pundits are still sticking to their "McCain won" view, but seem to have backed off the "hands down" qualification.

Early polling often reverses itself, but I'm beginning to think that the conventional wisdom on this is going to come out about where the NY Times put it today, i.e., the debate was more or less a draw but McCain needed a knock out in the one debate on foreign policy, so Obama effectively won.

Only time will tell.