Debate: Tie Goes to Obama

John McCain and Barack Obama squared off last night in their first debate. The mood was sober, serious and earnest. There was precious little levity. They started out on the economy before spending most of their time on foreign policy. I feel they stated their familiar positions and each appealed effectively to his own supporters. The bottom line is that they battled more or less to a draw, a result that helps Obama more than McCain. That's because McCain is behind and needs to make up some ground.

On domestic matters, McCain needed to espouse conservative principles while demonstrating some independence from the unpopular President Bush. He was able to make these cases fairly well, shoring up the base by insisting he could pay for everything folks want while cutting taxes and calling Obama liberal.

McCain needed to show commanding familiarity on international and defense matters, since that is the core of his candidacy. This he did. He enunciated his hard line positions with firmness, as always. Those who like a father figure willing to rattle the cages of all the meanies in a dangerous world were comforted.

On matters close to home, Obama portrayed himself as the champion of regular folks. He was at pains to show his tax and spending priorities are in line with the needs of average Americans and McCain's with the wealthy few. He also persistently tried to tie McCain together with Bush, a tactic McCain kept evading with some success.

In the international arena Obama made his longstanding case that Iraq is a colossal strategic mistake that has diverted us from our actual terrorist enemies. He also stuck to his new vision of foreign relations calling for greater engagement, even with rival nations. He and McCain sparred repeatedly on these approaches. Obama wanted to appear knowledgeable and possessing sufficient gravitas for people to imagine him as president. He passed these tests easily.

A problem area for McCain was his tendency to smirk and act dismissively of Obama's views. He repeatedly began remarks with, "Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand that..." His condescension was no doubt intended to put the young upstart in his place, but may instead have come off to many as disrespectful and arrogant.

Obama had potential trouble spots too. One interesting occurrence was that several times he began remarks with, "I agree with Senator McCain" or "I agree with John" about a certain issue, for instance about the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran. This could either show an intelligent openness that people could appreciate or it could play to McCain's advantage by conceding him expertise points. Obama's other possible fault was allowing a bit of annoyance to break his usually unflappable cool.

The early polls out this morning seem to show continued strength for Obama, though the effect of the debate may not have been measured yet. We'll see in the next few days whether this has been a game-changer, but I doubt it. This debate treaded water for both contenders.