During the first half hour of this debate, I thought we were finally going to see the truth at the heart of the conventional wisdom: John McCain did seem better at the town hall style than Barack Obama. McCain used the old five-paragraph essay trick: restating the question at the beginning of his answers, which made him seem engaged with the interlocutor. McCain more often addressed the question-askers by name, and his silly "my friends" tic seemed more natural in this setting. Obama did seem, yes, professorial.
Yet Obama found his sea legs after the first half hour. When he spoke about civilian national service and expanding the peace corps, "so military families and our troops are not the only ones bearing the burden," he articulated his own "country first" ideology. On energy, Obama actually said straight out that Americans would have to change their lifestyles to fight global warming, from driving fuel-efficient cars to weatherizing their homes. (It would have been even better if he had actually uttered the words "drive less.") The clearest win of the night was for Obama on health care; while McCain told Tom Brokaw that health insurance is a "responsibility," Obama said matter-of-factly that health care is "a right," and that it is shameful that in the United States, cancer patients are forced to fight their insurance companies for coverage. This is an issue on which Americans simply agree with Obama and disagree with McCain, who was unable to clearly explain the tax mechanics of his own health plan.
This debate was a tedious, awkward rehashing of what was covered in the last match-up between these two. But in the face of this economic crisis, the attacks and theatrics are simply fading from view. Issues profoundly matter, and they're breaking for Obama.
--Dana Goldstein
