I'm reading the transcript now.


Did that get a laugh from the audience? I seriously laughed my ass off reading Obama's line.

No big laughs all night.

Obama speaking about Biden: "That's what he's done when it comes to, for example, passing the landmark 1994 crime bill, the Violence Against Women's Act. Joe has always made sure that he is fighting on behalf of working families, and I think he shares my core values and my sense of where the country needs to go."

The violence against women act, at least part of it, was found unconstitutional in U.S. v. Morrison. Strange of Obama to cite that law.

Well they weren't suppose to laugh, clap, or boo so you wouldn't expect it.

You miss dynasties?

Thank feck america didn't extent the mockery of democracy thats my view.

hilldog looked a lot better now than she did in may

Not sure maybe he feels the court's decision was the wrong one. I don't think many people caught that though so I don't see it hurting him that much.

I truly think now the race is officially over. McCain threw everything at Obama tonight, and by all professional opinions, won the debate, but guess what, the CNN snap polls showed a similar advantage for Obama as for the first two debates; more than 50% of viewers believed he won, while McCain was stuck at sub-40%. It tells me that 1) people generally just don't like negative attacks, not in this economic environment; 2) Obama simply connects better with the viewers regardless how hard McCain tries. He has that advantage in natural appeals where in some sense, he just needs to say the right things to attract favorable opinions, without the need to back it up.

I'm sure 99% of people don't know the fate of the law. However, Obama did teach conlaw so I bet he knew about it being unconstitutional.

The reason was that the law was founded upon the Commerce Clause and the court took the view that it was too attenuated a link to commerce, which is, I think, the second time since the 1930's that the court struck a law down as being in violation of the commerce clause. The other being U.S. v. Lopez.

All professional opinions? Who are you listening to? I'm hearing and reading that Obama won by most observers, and by every single poll too.

Yeah but if Obama had gone into a ConLaw debate, people's eyes would gloss over and he'd lose on that point.

Yeah so it doesn't hurt him in this example.

Most "pundits" I heard immediately after the debate from various channels said McCain gave the stronger performance and put Obama on the defensive a lot, but then almost all of them also went on to say it's no game-changer. That was the immediate reaction I saw since I only caught the last few minutes of the debate personally.

Obama was on the defensive, but that was more from McCain being super aggressive and negative than actually making a strong stance on anything. Like trying to mount an attack on Obama for having a negative ad campaign and not resputing what's been said bad about the Republican campaign. Most people could see he was a pot calling the kettle black.

I thought Obama had an edge on him in the healthcare section, the Joe the Plumber stuff just felt like it was dieing to be parodied. And as said, the fact that Obama looked more presidential whereas McCain looked old and angry and blinking like a madman, pushed him to a 'victory' even if on the issues it wasn't as clear cut as before.

Heh! I was watching MSNBC so I suppose maybe they tend to be a bit more liberal...

But certainly the voter polls are showing Obama winning hugely.

Joe the plummer should make for a great SNL sketch.

Yeah, definitely, and that eased my brief worry.

In every debate so far, the pundits and journalists have either split down the middle or given the edge to McCain. It's the snap polls, however, that have given it overwhelmingly to Obama and dictated the meme of the Obama wins. The media simply aren't looking at the same things the undecided voters are looking at.

I doubt that will change tonight. The media like McCain's aggressiveness and point-scoring. But the audience continue to like Obama's views on economic policy and his generally positive tone.

The CNN/ORC poll has Obama winning the debate 58%-31%. Another drubbing.

I never thought I'd say this, but my impression is that Obama is doing better than even Hillary could have done at the top of her game specifically against McCain in this year's election. The reason being that Obama is incredibly calm and cool and yet still assertive, not ever getting worked up over any of the shit McCain throws at him. It's just such a remarkable contrast to McCain's angry, erratic characteristics, and I think this distinction has really hurt McCain throughout all three debates.

Peace,
Mike

"Senator Government...blah blah blah" - McCain addressing Obama

Well on CNN Gergen gave it to Obama and he is the one I trust the most on there. CNN has too many biased pundits like Bragla and Bennett and you know what they will say.

Has anyone noticed that Republicans always deny that they would have an abortion litmus test for the SCOTUS and then say that they would never nominate someone who supported Roe v Wade?

Um, what?