Detailing his debate impressions, Rick Hertzberg makes a good point: In general, the commentators thought McCain won. The voters thought Obama did. That's not an accident. McCain was playing for the commentators. He structured his debate performance around high information voters. He didn't spend much time detailing his plans or his personal qualities. Rather, he sought to find the occasional sliver of advantage, launched attacks on Obama, looked for the soundbite. It was the sort of performance meant to dominate the analyst roundtables. Obama, by contrast, played the debate as if he were meeting the electorate for the very first time. As if voters were judging him, rather than judging the contest between him and McCain. And so he was gracious, complimentary, calm. To paraphrase an old point of Mark Schmitt's, it is not what Obama said in his answers, but what the answers -- and the confident, composed delivery -- said about Obama. The impact has been significant. A USA Today/Gallup poll show 46% thought Obama won the debate, while 34% judged McCain the victor. Worse for the McCain campaign, "more than one-third of viewers, or 37%, said they had less confidence in McCain to fix economic problems after seeing the debate; 23% said more." An LA Times/Bloomberg poll saw 49% name Obama the winner, while 45% preferred McCain. Crucially, "voters said Obama seemed more presidential by a 46 percent to 33 percent margin. Among those uncertain about their vote -- those who are either undecided or declaring they may change preference -- Obama was more than 2-to-1 ahead of McCain on this question." And finally, the Gallup tracking poll, which included one full day of post-debate interviews, registered an eight-point lead for Obama. This raises an interesting question. Obama scored an extremely clear win on Friday night. But the pundits scored the debate for McCain. That would be fine if the pundits were there to score the substance of the debate, and they believed that McCain made better, and more factually accurate, points. But that's not their professed job (sadly). Rather, they score the political implications of the debate. And their early reviews -- mildly, but mostly unanimously, for McCain -- were precisely opposite the public's impressions. That seems like a problem.
