Funnily enough both did good in the areas they were supposed to be weak imo.
McCain in economics
Obama in Foreign Affairs

McCain got a clear knock out on Obama in the Surge portion.
Unfortunately Obama failed to counter that attack properly as he'd done a couple of weeks before when he noted the Sunni's switch to being anti-insurgent/terrorist as a big surge for the Surge. He also should've knocked out McCain where on the issue of timetables since McCain himself has spoken of a 2013 timetable.

Obama got the edge on McCain regarding Georgia since as he pointed out himself, Obama said Georgia needs to show constraint; Georgia needs to watch itself and not be too provocative since it has no Allies to directly help it in a tussle with Russia.

I liked how in the final phase Obama got the edge in is America safer where he identified the real covert terrorist threats to watch out for.

McCain kept his cool a few times -noticeably....lol. I think his tactic was not to look at Obama in addressing him most of the debate.
McCain did good and Obama better than expected. Nice debate.

I really enjoyed the debate. Thought both did better than expected. Was very impressed with Obama's poise.

Early polling by CBS and CNN show Obama racking up a significant victory.

McCain needed this as a solid win. A guy I like to look to for a middle of the road reaction is David Gergen, political consultant and adviser to Nixon, Ford Reagan and Clinton. He saw this as a bleak night for the McCain campaign.

What I enjoy most about post debate commentary are the fact checking. It will be interesting to see what bubbles to the surface. There were quite a few whoppers. Both claiming Iran had REPUBLICAN guard! LOL. If it is Iran, they should have been talking about the Revolutionary Guard.

Thanks for starting a new topic.
I'll wait for an in depth opinion after watching what I missed an seeing what the fact checkers have to say.

Initial impression would be a small win for McCain.
Unfortunately anything less then then a big McCain win on this debate equals a loss for McCain.
From what I saw he didn't preform as well as I expect on this subject.
I did get a laugh out of Obama "I have a bracelet too", sorry but that was a stupid thing to say. I don't think it hurt him, I just found it funny.


More later....
The wifey is offering a cartoon of her own.