Obama vs. McCain. The Conclusion.

Last night's event concluded this election cycle's series of four presidential (and VP) debates. Its reception followed a pattern that was established during the first one, and continued throughout. I was happy with the performances of Barack Obama and Joe Biden in each of the installments. Still, after each contest, pundits consistently insisted that they were draws. But a strange thing happened when the viewing public was consulted- American voters (both decided and uncommitted) overwhelmingly reported a clean sweep for Obama. I'd like to say that the corporate media's refusal to choose a winner in this series will finally put to rest the oft-repeated rightwing notion that the press has a liberal bias. However, I'm not nearly so naïve as to believe that this pattern will be widely acknowledged.

Regardless, as I've said before, the debates really aren't about "winning and losing". They are about meeting expectations. In this case the objectives of each candidate were well known. Both the McCain campaign and the candidate himself promised that the Arizona senator would come out especially aggressive. Conventional wisdom said that this was his last chance to change the momentum of the race. We heard that McCain would finally bring up Obama's "suspect associations" with Ayers and ACORN, and we waited to see whether he would follow through. Moderator (and CBS anchor) Bob Schieffer left him with no other option when he asked the rivals to address the perceived negativity flowing through the race.

So John McCain came out swinging hard, the way Mike Tyson used to do before he tried to bite off Evander Holyfield's ear. For the first half hour of the debate, he looked feistier than we have seen him look at any time since 2004. He attempted to make populist appeals, using "Joe the Plumber" as a prop. He tried to pin the big-spending tail on the donkey. And he trotted out the timeworn "class warfare" red herring. But then (apparently) his advanced age and flagging endurance made him stumble, and from there on out Obama looked in control of the match. Ironically the turning point occurred with his introduction of Ayers, a subject Republican extremists insisted he include in the debate.

The absolutely unflappable Obama laid out, in the very simplest terms, the facts about his "association" with Bill Ayers. Not only did he convey absolute sincerity, but he even turned the narrative on its head, pointing out that the educational reform panel that he sat on with Professor Ayers contained folks like the "the presidents of the University of Illinois, the president of Northwestern University, who happens to be a Republican, (and) the president of The Chicago Tribune, a Republican- leaning newspaper." Then he put the nail in the coffin of the McCain/Palin attack ads by saying that his campaign has no connection to ACORN- an organization he represented (in the early 90's) only as an attorney working with the US Justice Department to ensure that the state of Illinois complied with the motor voter law.

After that turnaround, McCain was completely incapable of sustaining any momentum, and clumsily returned again and again to his "Joe the Plumber" gimmick. It was clear that John had "jumped the shark" when he began talking directly to the unseen "Joe", and congratulating him for being "rich". I think he realized too that he had blown his "last best chance". His eyes started flittering back and forth like he was lost and scared, and he began to make the faces that have been the source of so much speculation regarding his temperament and stability. By the end of the night, it was clear that Obama had succeeded from the first to the last in his mission to prove himself presidential. Meanwhile McCain was left to pick up the pieces of his shattered campaign, which has run nothing but attack ads for the last few weeks.