I think the “that’s not true John” comments really helped Obama. I agree that Obama fumbled parts of the earmark system, he should have brought up his ethics bill right away. Oddly I thought McCain did a little better on the economy then on foreign policy, although Obama did get backed into a nasty corner when talking about meeting with hostile leaders. On this subject I think they were both, basically, arguing the same point.

On a lot of the other FP issues Obama really hammered McCain and I think that’s where he got his victory. I thought both were very weak on the economic questions, as Begala said: you would have no idea that we’re in the middle of a crisis. they’re saying the same things they would have said two months ago.

I am a bit surprised by the lopsided numbers coming out of the debate but I do agree with most analysts that nobody knocked this one out of the park in a general sense. The thing about debates is that one subject generally is enough to make someone believe that person won the whole thing.