McCain Goes Negative, Obama Keeps Cool

In what Nate Silver described as the “Say-It-To-My-Face” debate, John McCain needed a game-changer. Trailing by 8-10 points nationally, down 3-0 in the first two Presidential debates and the Vice-Presidential debate, 2-1 cash disadvantage, and what 538 estimates to be a 2-1 or even 3-1 ground game disadvantage, this was a must-win for John McCain.

McCain started out very strong, and Obama came out flat. McCain’s line that if Obama wanted to run against Bush, “he should have run four years ago,” was brilliant. This was the first time I have seen McCain look confident, make substantive and intelligent points, and hit high marks with CNN’s uncommitted Ohio voters. He made some excellent points on trade that I agreed with. Not game changing, but enough to close the gap sufficiently that cable news shows will still have decent ratings on November 4.

Unfortunately, the attack points that the far right have spent all week insisting that McCain hammer Obama on came up, and McCain massively overplayed his hand. McCain got angry, combative, and insistent, while Obama tried to focus on substantive issues. Not only did Obama win the exchanges over Ayers, ACORN, and John Lewis, but McCain was unable to get back on track. He stammered over most of his talking points, appeared angry and flustered, and made no strong points. Obama on the other hand, continue to surge and hit some excellent points on the economy, while his comments on how to fix education are the most intelligent I’ve heard from a politician. I particularly loved what he said about parents turning off the video games. He also managed to turn many of McCain’s attacks around on him. For example, McCain very condescendingly implied that Obama was clueless on trade issues with Columbia. Well, that attack looks ridiculously foolish when Obama responds with a brief history of trade unions in Columbia.

Overall, the post-debate numbers broke about 2:1 for Obama, the same as the first two debates. These are huge margins of victory, unlike anything I’ve seen post-debate in my lifetime. I really don’t see a path that is left for McCain. He’s low on cash, has no more debates, and has thrown so many hail mary’s that Bill Belichick is asking to him to start at quarterback for next Sunday’s game against the Broncos. With early voting already having started in many states, and Obama showing leads in places like GEORGIA, I think that McCain needs to take control of his campaign, cut off the negativity, rein in Sarah Palin and Steve Schmidt, and win-or-lose, finish this campaign with some dignity.

I also want to give kudos to Bob Schieffer, who did a FANTASTIC job as moderator, following back-to-back awful performances by Gwen Ifell and Tom Brokaw. Even more so than Obama, Schieffer was the winner of tonight’s debate, and I hope to see him moderating the debates in 2012.