Second presidential debate has no game-changers, but Obama emerges as winner

by Sean Yoes and Bobbi Booker, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

Most political observers argued that Arizona Senator John McCain needed a knockout -- a game changer -- during the second presidential debate Tuesday night with his Democratic rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama. The consensus is that he got neither.

In fact, the verdict of uncommitted and independent voters who watched the debate was the same verdict rendered after the first presidential debate on September 26 -- Obama was the decisive winner.

By virtually every post debate metric taken, it was Obama who was the winner, despite the fact that the town hall format was allegedly a clear advantage for McCain, who has, on several occasions, challenged Obama to a series of similar debates across the country and suggested that the race’s tone would not be as ugly if Obama had agreed.

The debate, which took place in Nashville, Tennessee on the campus of Belmont University, was moderated by NBC’s Tom Brokaw, who selected questions relating to the economy and foreign affairs gathered from a pool of millions submitted by email. Other questions were asked by the audience, which consisted of one-third of people leaning towards Obama, one-third leaning towards McCain and the other third undecided. They were selected by Gallup, the polling organization.

Just moments after the debate ended, NBC correspondent Norah O’Donnell took a show of hands at a debate listening party in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania -- one of the battleground states McCain desperately wants to win. That informal and unscientific poll shows those uncommitted voters thought Obama won the debate 60 percent to 40 percent.

West Philadelphia hairstylist Yvette Smalls said many of her customers are “disenchanted and unimpressed" with McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (whose name went unspoken during the 90-plus minute debate). While Smalls’ is an occasional television viewer, she made plans to see last night’s debate between Obama and McCain.

“In my opinion, Barack trounced him,” said Smalls. “He was very humble, very grateful, very controlled and not spastic.”

The body language between the candidates was striking. The men’s 25-year age difference was even more pronounced as McCain often looked tense and angry, while Obama seemed relaxed and often flashed a broad smile.

“I think Obama showed himself well again,” noted Temple University senior Terrance McNeil. However, McCain’s attempts at humor fell flat, he said.

“I think he made cynical jokes and tried to appease the crowd,” said McNeil.” I don’t think he addressed the issues as well and as direct as Obama does, and I think that’s going to be a problem in the long run. I think McCain still has some work to do.

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On the other hand, freelance political writer Wendall Simpson felt Obama had tempered his delivery from the fiery Black oratorical mode that helped introduce him during the 2004 Democratic convention.

“I think that Obama needs to just go ahead and be more aggressive, a little more funkier, and really be challenging to people and not try to be the placating politician,” said Simpson, who added that “neither one of these guys set the world on fire.”

At a debate viewing in Columbus, Ohio on the campus of Ohio State University, CNN correspondent Soledad O’Brien also took a show of hands of those uncommitted voters and the margin was closer but, the results were the same: Obama was the victor.

According to CNN/Opinion Research Poll results announced shortly after the debate’s conclusion, Obama won the debate 54 percent to 30 percent over his Republican rival.

And it was bad news all the way around for McCain according to the poll of uncommitted voters.

On the economy, Obama bested McCain 59 percent to 37 percent. On the question of who would handle the financial crisis, more effectively Obama won by a margin of 57 percent to 36 percent.

Sixty percent of those polled thought Obama expressed his views more clearly than McCain, while 30 percent believed it was the Arizona senator whose views were more clearly stated. They also believed that McCain launched more negative attacks than Obama 63 to 17 percent.

But, there’s no real surprise there. Most believed that McCain, who is behind in virtually every national poll and most polls of battleground states -- had to be the aggressor.

But perhaps what is most surprising is that Obama also beat McCain in areas where the conventional wisdom gave McCain the advantage.

Obama beat McCain 51 to 47 percent in the area of Iraq policy and on the issue of leadership by 11 points, 54 to 43 percent. Even the most partisan conservative commentators conceded that McCain didn’t have the night he needed to have.

“You don’t run the four corners offense when you’re behind,” said CNN conservative commentator Alex Castellanos, alluding to McCain’s inability to score any significant blows on Obama in what was supposed to be a more familiar context for the Republican.

Black Republican strategist Renee Amoore praised her candidate's performance during a post debate appearance on CNN.

“Obama gave the first jab, and he jabbed back,” assessed Amoore, who is deputy chair of the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee. “I think he did a really good job. He was articulate and moved around. He feels very comfortable in that whole environment.

“I felt like he answered the questions and he felt good about it too; you could tell. I think he did well, and I think he’ll get a bump.”

Although there were no knockdowns or major gaffes the two most controversial moments of the evening both belonged to McCain.

McCain announced that if he were president, he would direct his treasury secretary to buy up bad mortgages to the tune of about $300 billion -- in addition to the $700 billion plus cost of the bailout proposal -- to the consternation of many Republicans.

“I don’t think that’s going to go down well with the base,” said veteran conservative commentator and NBC political analyst Pat Buchanan.

McCain didn’t fare much better in a CBS poll of 400 uncommitted voters, who gave Obama the edge in the Belmont University debate by a margin of 39 percent to 27 percent, with 35 percent declaring the contest a draw.

Another McCain blunder won’t go down well with many more. Criticizing Obama for supporting the 2007 Bush-Cheney energy bill, McCain said, “It was an energy bill on the floor of the Senate, loaded down with goodies, billions for the oil companies, and it was sponsored by Bush and Cheney.” Pointing his index finger towards Obama, he continued, “You know who voted for it? You might never know. That one. You know who voted against it? Me.”

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton immediately emailed reporters, noting McCain’s seemingly peculiar reference to the Illinois senator.

“Did John McCain just refer to Obama as ‘that one?’” Burton asked.

Another telling moment of the debate actually occurred at its conclusion, when McCain and his wife, Cindy, briefly greeted members of the audience then exited the scene quickly. In stark contrast Obama and his wife Michelle, who sat in the audience, shook hands, hugged, signed autographs and posed for photos with several members of the audience long after the event ended.

Besides McCain, perhaps the other loser of the night in Nashville was Brokaw, who seemed somewhat erratic in his questioning and, on different occasions, tried to awkwardly force Obama and McCain to stay within the framework of the town hall format both camps agreed to, a format most commentators didn’t particularly like.

“They need to get rid of this format forever,” said CNN commentator Jeffrey Tobin.

With less than a month before November 4, the McCain camp probably wishes they could get rid of America’s economic crisis forever.