I’d like to give McCain credit for this first debate, but I can’t.  When his moments happened, it was his broken re-theme of the Bush administration or a contorted regurgitation of Obama in a twisted “change” fashion that didn’t settle into the stomach like a meatloaf comfort meal.  It was mystery meat and more like an uncomfortable meal at an all to familiar chinese resturaunt where the servings were made up of long term loans on America’s future.  Not pretty.  And despite his ability to put up a manhandled view of foreign policy he wasn’t able to properly transform any of his weaknesses to strenghts.  And his attempts at converting Obama’s “mainstreet” theme to his own fell hollow on his inability to address the tax inequity most Americans understand so well.
McCain jumped around from housing crisis to foriegn oil and while there is somewhat of a connection if you live in overpriced suburbs, until you parse that out between the average guy who is still plugging along (and making his mortage payment, the theme simply doesn’t make sense.  McCain simply couldn’t connect the dots when the majority of American’s finances where on the table.
Then he lied.  “I warned about Freddy and Fannie” were classic because that simply isn’t true.  Not with his sleeping habits between those failed financial giants and his historical past amongst the Keating 5.  It was bleeding over the debate for anyone who’s memory was longer than the latest Brittney Spears drama.  And when asked by Jim Leherer what it would take to get out of the current financial crisis, McCain could only cite excessive government spending forgetting that the two are unrelated.  It’s the lack of regulatory oversight under his watch that created much of what we are experiencing. For Obama’s part, he could have expanded on that theme.  However, McCains obvious superficial response, of which most voters susceptible to that type of persuasion, would have been simply that those regulations were loosened under the Clinton administration… forgetting the oversight that has actually been the crux of the issue.  Problem: people believe what they want to believe despite the facts.  If anyone was paying attention, they would have realized that government spending had little or nothing to do with the widespread failure of our financial institutions.  Well… unless you now count in the bailout being contemplated in congress.
Sure, you could lump the bailout and lax oversight with spending but only in the face of the simple lack of investing of in the necessary oversight. That costs money too, but far less than the pork barrel spending that McCain so vehemently criticized during the debate.
Obama could have been much stronger in my opinion.  McCain had opened himself to several criticisms that Obama didn’t capitalize on when the opportunity to do so was there.  And they were subtle and yet important bits outside of the national conscience that relate back to the every day lives of Americans.
But as far as first debates go… I’ll take it.
Now lets take bets of when Palin will be Bailin!