And the thing about Obama winning the first debate that strikes me as odd is that while the polls show he won, and conservatives predictably gave their spin that McCain won, the liberal side didn’t say Obama won. For example, the commentators on Air America covering the debate thought it was a draw and maybe that McCain won, and that seemed the general opinion around the blogosphere. I think it was the expectations game. Liberals knew Obama was a substantive person who would come across well, but we weren’t so sure about McCain, so he beat our expectations. Much of the audience however hadn’t seen Obama before and just knew him as a flighty celebrity who didn’t know much, so he came across as more presidential than expected, whereas McCain was expected to be expert, so a draw helped Obama.

A bit of a warning regarding downplaying Palin’s likely debate performance. How bad can she be? She had to debate when she ran for governor, so she can’t be completely hopeless. We don’t want a situation where she can win if she just manages not to run off stage before it’s over.