I missed the debate all together. can someone please give me your readers digest version about what happened in the debate.

Thank You verry much.

I wanted to see it so bad too slept throu it.

Also because I did not see it I will not be making a "who did better" poll.

You can watch the whole thing here:

Watch the Full Obama-McCain Debate | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

It was pretty predictable and boring.

__________________
"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell Animal Farm

This is just my take.

I didn't like Tom Brockaw as a moderator. I don't think that his presence hurt McCain any more than it hurt Obama, and while watching it, I actually had the opposite feeling, but I do agree with this statement from the conservative Powerline blog:

Power Line: A note on Tom Brokaw

I agree with hambirg that the responses by the candidates were very predictable. The only new thing in the debate was another bailout plan, this one coming from McCain. A columnist with the National Review Online, another conservative website, described it this way:

McCain vs. Obama: The Snoozer in Nashville by Byron York on National Review Online

If the comments about the debate on Powerline and elsewhere are any clue, the conservative right wing members (or at least those who post there and on similar conservative websites) really hated McCain's performance. I read many comments that said that his answer to this and on questions dealing with alternative energy and the like show that he is a RINO. Based upon these websites and upon based on the comments by my Republican friends, he is seen as abandoning the ideological base of his party.

I doubt that he really is anything other than a conservative Republican who embraces most of the conservative belief systems, albeit not all of them. But, suffice it to say that his answers are causing more consternation to the base of his party than Obama's are causing problems for him in the Democratic party.

With so little new said in the debate, the post-game analysis has basically come down to visuals and analyzing the presentation. Who looked better and who came off better. Obama wins on this point. I remember after the first debate, someone posting on Powerline said that Obama could be called a winner because he looked presidential and acted presidential, and his performance silenced a lot of the unspoken criticism as to whether he had the dignity and presence to be presidential.

Last night, he looked cool, calm, collected. Whether you like him or not, he did look like a serious contender.

He also had one of the very few really memorable moments last night, when he mentioned his mom battling her insurance company for coverage as she was dying from ovarian cancer. He seemed to connect there, which was one of the few times during the debate that either candidate did.

McCain didn't fare as well. Bluntly, he looked old. He made some efforts at humor, which fell flat. He seemed disdainful towards Obama. He also seemed grumpy. Walter Matthau in "Old Grumpy Men" came to mind when watching him.

He also had a few bad tics. His repeated use of the term, "my friends," came off poorly. He used it as a crutch to link thoughts, I think, but he used it so frequently that it almost became condenscending to me. His riff about "Who voted against it? That one." came off very badly. I think that referring to Obama as "that one" came off worse than intended.

On the "that one" comment, it appears even McCain's camp wishes he hadn't said it:

McCain vs. Obama: The Snoozer in Nashville by Byron York on National Review Online

I don't know how McCain thought it would be funny, or for that matter, why he even felt the need to be funny. The point is that it came off as rude. And it played into the perception of many that McCain doesn't tolerate opposition well.

In the end, McCain lost because he didn't win. This was supposed to be his forum to shine, so expectations were high. He needed to bring it home. I'll agree this wasn't the typical townhall forum, but his campaign agreed to this format. IMHO, his campaign should not have built expectations so high about how he would do in this debate when they knew that the debate format was actually different than the format that he does best in.

In addition, he didn't win because his only standout points were negative points. Substantively, we heard mainly his same old speaking points so he didn't bring anything new to the table. And he upset his base, by expressing a willingness to accept somethings that his base finds abhorrent. And he looked old, and thereby reminded people that he was old. And he seem disdainful. It was almost as though he thought that he should be the heir apparent, and he really resented anyone questioning his right.

Now, I am not without criticism for Obama either. I thought that the substance of his answers were things that I heard before, and I had hoped for more. I thought his answers could be more concise. I thought that he did not do his best in this format, where he wanted to respond to McCain's response to the question and not Brockaw's followup. I didn't think he adjusted well to this hybrid of a town hall meeting.

I think these same criticism attach to McCain, though.

In the end, I'm not surprised that Obama is being judged the winner last night. Personally, though, I think that it is more a matter that McCain lost. This was supposed to be his opportunity to hit it out of the ballpark and stop the Obama train. He didn't. The best thing for Republicans about last night's debate was it was boring enough that I suspect lots of folks turned it off and in the end, it won't matter for much.

Next week's debate will be more interesting. Let's see whether McCain actually brings up during the debate some of its campaign stop speeches, particularly Palin's "pallin' around with terrorists" and trying to wed Obama to Reverend Wright's remarks.

The problem for McCain with bringing these things up at the last minute is that it will be coming off late in the game, and might smack as desperation. Also, at this stage, Obama must be prepared for these attacks.

Anyway, last night's debate was much more interesting from the perspective of analyzing the physical appearance and the psychology of the responses, and much less interesting on a substantive level, unless you are a conservative, where it seems (at least based on reading the comments on conservative websites), where there does seem to be a feeling of betrayal.

Just my take as an admitted liberal Democrat.