The first poll I saw tonight was CBS's analysis of 500 undecided voters. In that poll, 40 percent gave the debate to Obama, 22 percent gave the debate to McCain. Then Frank Luntz's focus group gave it to Obama. Then the GQR focus group gave it to Obama. Then CNN's poll gave it to Obama. I haven't seen any poll or focus group that scored it for McCain. So Obama won. But say this for the combatants: McCain was certainly more impassioned. And not because he became emotional over stories of soldiers or concerned as he detailed the country's dire economic condition. His emotion, his passion, came from a nearly uncontrollable contempt for his opponent. Every other sentence began with the words "what Senator Obama doesn't understand." He called Obama dangerous and he called him naive. His rejoinders were caustic and contemptuous, and in this, they were very authentic. McCain's hot anger that this young man even gets to share a stage with him -- much less lead him in the polls -- was continually evident. But if Obama was the focus of McCain's anger, he was not its cause. The question in a debate may have relatively little to do with who is "right," but the questions in an election have a lot to do with what is happening. Right now, the economy is collapsing atop the economic theory John McCain has upheld for years. McCain has no answer for that, so he tried to duck out of the unscripted forum in which he'd be called to address the calamity. It was a momentary panic that served as the quiet backdrop to even his loudest attacks tonight. Give McCain this: He did an extremely good stylistic job in an extremely hard situation. I doubt he could have offered a better performance. But the polls suggest that undecideds broke hard for Obama anyway. Which suggests that McCain's problem is what he's saying, not how he's saying it. McCain has every right to be angry: He would have been an excellent, maybe unbeatable, candidate in 2000 or 2004. Instead, he's facing down the excesses of his own ideology in 2008. And that's what McCain doesn't understand. He's not behind because he doesn't deserve this, or because he's not served his country honorably. He's behind because events have disproven his agenda. Because the success of the surge does not outweigh the blunder of Iraq. Because the appeal of tax cuts does not outweigh the costs of deregulation and wage stagnation. And even the best debate performance can't obscure that.
