Obama's Prevent Defense

They both did what they wanted to do. Obama did the prevent defense and just concentrated on McCain's attacks, lobbing them back as well as he could. Interestingly, many of Schieffer's questions were not friendly territory for Obama.

This gave McCain an opportunity to do what I expected him to do, which is signal to the base that he was still in it, plus make the case that Obama was the "L" word. Yes, that's right, a liberal. Very liberal on abortion, on tax policy, on spending, etc. Dukakis without the eyebrows.

Will it stick? Meh, probably not. But the important thing is I think that McCain was able to launch all these attacks without significantly hurting himself as the big mean guy. And I think he managed it because he started off with both a magnificent (rhetorically anyway) defense against John Lewis. He looked sincerely pained and I think he was. Then followed up a short time later with a defense of his base against the smears that some Democrats and Obama supporters have been. Exactly the right tone, and Obama couldn't really say anything against it.

Of course in the middle of that was the question about Ayers. Now up to that point it was still an open question on whether Ayers was going to come up. But Schieffer basically didn't give McCain a chance to dodge it (even if he wanted to) by saying, "hey given the negativity, is there anything you want to say to each other's face?" Which of course was code for: bring it up now if you're man enough.

And McCain brought it up and Obama dodged best he could. Now the important thing about this attack and the rest of it was a signal to the base that McCain is not giving up. He's going to use Ayers, but not dwell on him exclusively... plus Obama's abortion vote... plus Joe the Plumber...

Oh yes, we now have a new campaign celebrity, Joe the Plumber, who would like to buy a business, until he realized that Obama would tax the bejeesus out of it. He asked Obama directly, and Obama said something like "we need to spread the wealth around". Which of course is a direct statement that Obama supports redistribution of wealth. Well, everyone knows that Obama supports it, but it's also something you can't just come out and say in American politics, so it's definitely something of a gaffe. McCain's been using it to point out that taxing the $250k earners and above will really trickle down to tax all of us in decreased economic opportunities. Or McCain would be if he could put a coherent sentence on it together. Well, it wasn't that bad, but he did stumble over the prepared lines on it there in the beginning.

...but back to my point which is that McCain did manage in signalling to his base that he hasn't given up, he will keep fighting and that means actual fighting, with negative attacks and everything. But on balance McCain probably spent more time on positive issues, i.e. reasons to vote for McCain.

Result of the debate. Neither lost, the polls won't change much, but the bases of each party will be recharged for the final stretch. If McCain is going to close the gap he wasn't going to do it with a debate. Obama isn't going to make an enabling mistake like that at this point. He mainly stuck to the talking points and played defense. Exactly like a guy with a solid, but not comfortable 7 point lead.

Focus groups and undecided voters in both CNN and Fox news were still largely undecided as to their vote even as they thought Obama won the debate. About as expected. These people won't make up their mind until the voting booth, if then.