2nd Presidential Debate

Personally, I was expecting new material from both debaters, and wanted to walk around onstage bopping them upside their heads whenever they resorted to memorized tidbits. I would have been playing whack-a-mole all night long... It turned out to be a retread of the first debate, with the results from polls taken afterwards mirroring those results. The professional political watchers were bored by it or gave it a draw, which translated into a loss for John McCain, who had to shake things up if he was going to turn the tides running against him.

I think it again came down to the intangibles, how each candidate portrayed themselves to the audience, how they reacted to accusations from their opponent, how they projected their voice. And another curious thing: cameras showed Barack and Michelle Obama staying afterwards and shaking hands with each audience member, long after John and Cindy McCain were gone. They had pictures taken with the audience and talked and listened to them. It shows who is willing to go the extra effort and actually connect with people.

Because Democrats are out-registering new voters at margins of five to one, and up to fifteen to one, over Republicans, its assumed that this Presidential race is pretty much over. Young people are calling up their grandparents, asking them to vote for Obama, and they're giving this credit for turning places like Florida and Pennsylvania into new Democratic strongholds.

Even though both campaigns claim a win again for this debate, the nod was given to Obama by the viewers. Now I can concentrate on our local Colorado races, where you can barely breathe from all of the bs that being slung around.