Although the pundits were impressed with John McCain’s debate performance, the polls showed another win for Barack Obama, who once again kept his cool against an angry, negative opponent.

McCain was able to land some attacks, but he was as untelegenic as ever — he laughed awkwardly and sighed heavily, and when Obama said that even Fox News had debunked the McCain campaign his eyes almost popped out of his head.

It’s hard to focus on substance over style after three debates of mostly repetitive arguments. McCain thinks Obama will hurt the economy by raising taxes. Obama says he won’t. Fireworks.


Congressional Quarterly:

The snap polls of reaction to the debate seem to agree: Barack Obama won again.

Fifty-eight percent of debate watchers said that Obama did the best job in the debate compared to 31 percent for John McCain, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll. The debate caused favorable opinions of Obama to rise slightly from 63 percent at the start to 66 percent, while McCain’s slipped 51 percent to 49 percent.

[…] A CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll of uncommitted voters said 53 percent called Obama the winner, 22 percent chose McCain and 25 percent thought it was a tie.

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