John McCain had a very strong start in the first 30 minutes or so, and I thought that he was heading toward a debate victory - his first. But he veered off course in the middle as the conversation turned toward the negative quality of the campaign - and he became more and more the angry, older candidate, bringing back memories of the performance by Bob Dole back in 1996 that helped to doom his campaign. He also seemed to grow more tired over the course of the debate.
Barack Obama had a good first answer about his economic plan then seemed flat for the rest of the first half hour. But then things picked up for him. During the assaults by McCain, he kept his cool - he never took the bait (rumors were heavy before the debate that McCain would try to goad him into losing his steadiness). Coming out of that second half hour, Obama became much stronger in the last third of the debate, scoring extremely well on health care, education, abortion, and the Supreme Court.
McCain likely helped himself with his base tonight, but I doubt that he helped himself much with undecided voters.
Overall, I would score Obama at an A minus for the night, and McCain at a B plus.
It appears that Obama will come out of these debates with a general public perception that he has won three in a row.
PS: A hearty salute to tonight's moderator, Bob Schieffer, he deserves an A plus.
(CNN) - McCain aides expressed relief Wednesday night that the Arizona senator “finally” used a line that took on one of Obama’s central campaign themes.
Watch: I'm not Bush, McCain says
“Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush,” he said. “If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago. I will take this country in a new direction."
McCain advisors – who said they had been pushing him to stress that distinction more explicitly than he had in the past - immediately uploaded the quote to YouTube, and circulated it to reporters.
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HEMPSTEAD, New York (CNN) - John McCain refused Wednesday to commit to nominating only judges who opposed abortion, saying he would "never impose a litmus test" on court nominees.
Watch: McCain and Obama on abortion
But he qualified the statement a moment later, saying he would base his nominations on "qualifications" - and that he did not believe a judge who supported Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion, "would be part of those qualifications."
McCain hammered his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, on abortion, accusing him of "aligning himself with the extreme aspect of the pro-abortion movement in America."
Obama rejected the charge out of hand, saying: "Nobody is pro-abortion."
He advocated sex education as a way of reducing the number of unintended pregnancies that result in abortions.
"We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth, communicating that sexuality is sacred and they should not be engaged in cavalier activity," he said.
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HEMPSTEAD, New York (CNN) - Both Obama and McCain are free traders, but McCain's problem is that he is a more full-throated ideological free trader and that doesn't play well in economic times of trouble.
The public is very suspicious of free trade.
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