Debate Two and Debate Three

If you listen to the debates on the radio and/or just read the transcript, Mr. McCain won both debates. He won the third debate by a wider margin as he constantly tried to land strong right hooks but they continued to not entirely stick. You watch the debates however and how much he won is diminished, one could argue greatly. It felt like after the second debate the polls wouldn't move more than a point or two because Mr. Obama simply didn't screw up and/or hand Mr. McCain a true game changer. (It is interesting that every "snap poll" has Sen. Obama winning all three debates by essentially the same exact margin...hard to account for that unless too many of those polled were wanting to vote for Sen. Obama but just wasn't sure of him yet. I suppose that would speak to those who have said all along this entire election has been about Mr. Obama and not in fact Mr. McCain -which I disagree with almost entirely. Disagree or agree with Mr. Obama's policies, he did in fact come across presidential in all three.)

Expected a bigger a bounce for McCain coming out of the third debate. If nothing else he certainly did a much better job of reminding American's why they've respected him all of these years and he left himself open to get voters to take a second look at him. He screwed this up however. He didn't take advantage of the opening to get out a new, strong, consistent message. Frankly McCain hasn't been hard enough on Obama. He has let Obama off the hook far too easyily. You can't kind of toss out points or attacks when you're behind and in a climate that Mr. Obama has successfully continued to tie Mr. McCain to President Bush.