Totally agree. He is winning because he is nice, yet all the critics tell him to be more aggressive and go on the attack. What passes for political analysis on the corporate media is pathetic. The pundits are clearly unable to understand where the majority of Americans are this year.

Add me to the echo chamber. I thought: There's McCain, saying he's bipartisan, saying he can talk to other country's leaders, and he won't even look at or address his own colleague in the senate and in the election. Has he so little respect for Obama, for the citizens who've elected Obama to this position?

And there's Obama, DEMONSTRATING that he can play "nice" while holding his own, looking at McCain, calling him "John," rarely going on the attack.

I loved the "nice." We need more "nice."

I agree whole heartedly with you on this issue. I am so tired of all the blathering heads telling Obama how to run his campaign. They did it all through the primaries, and much to their suprise, he won without getting nasty. You can't have a campaign based on HOPE while bashing every little thing. I think Obama has had his game plan in place for a very long time and he has not veered away from it. He knows what he is doing and all these crybabies wanting an ugly fight are just plain silly.

Yes, yes, and YES! Completely, absolutely positively agree, and I've been saying such to everyone that I've talked to that had criticism for Obama for being "too nice".

I watched CNN for the debate, and they had an audience reaction meter. Every time McCain attacked Obama, McCain scored huge negatives from Independents. Every time Obama said, "John, I agree" or something to that affect, the Independents gave Obama positive marks. The point to take away from this? Independents (the group that McCain needs to win with soaring marks) preferred a message of bipartisanship and agreement, rather than partisanship and disagreement.

As James fallows said,

Barring a truly disastrous performance, each side's partisans will think their candidate did well, and will be reinforced in the reasons for supporting the person they already like... Which means therefore: The audience that matters is people who start out undecided or uncertain -- and finally are looking for emotional reassurance about who they can imagine as president for the next four years.

And on this, McCain lost. Horribly. His hugely negative spin did nothing but add insult to injury to the fact that Obama went toe-to-toe with McCain on foreign policy and national security, subjects that McCain was supposed to excel beyond measure in, and held his own.

Totally agree. While McCain talked about reaching across the aisle, Obama demonstrated how it's done.

If McCain can't even get along with his own party (not Miss Congeniality) and doesn't respect his opponents, how does he expect to get anything done?

Exactly! His willingness to listen to the other side and be civil is why I started liking him early on and supported him over Hillary, even though as a fellow political science major/graduate of Wellesley College I should have been part of her natural constituency. There have been many points where I was afraid Obama would start with the politics as usual on the advice of "experts," but now I'm pretty confident that this is so who he is and that he'll stay on the high road.

I agree.

At the risk of opening old wounds, it's what tipped me in Obama's favor during the primaries. I saw strengths in both Clinton and Obama, but I liked that Obama stayed civil and even mild while Clinton got kinda nasty.

Looking at the debate last night without sound, you saw Obama not only looking at McCain but smiling genuinely at him on occasion. McCain not only wouldn't look Obama in the eye, he also got that truly creepy smile on his face that seemed to be holding his temper in.

A couple of months ago I told some friends I thought Obama has had a lot of practice staying unruffled because he has such an emotionally demonstrative wife. I think that's a great trait for her to have, but for him it's been training in how to wade through the extraneous stuff and focus on what Michelle really wants or needs that might have been obscured by her emotional response. That's a great quality for a world leader to possess (as well as a wonderful complement as a husband).

With McCain, I think it's probably been an opposite situation, but in their case, I get the feeling Cindy has had to coddle McCain through his temper tantrums. It might explain her need to self-medicate.

On issues Obama won long ago. Now that the financial markets have gone Tango Uniform, McCain can't possibly win on issues. If issue voters plan to vote for McCain, they can't be won over by the debate.

The only factor on which McCain wins is being more Caucasian than Obama. Obama knows there are voters out there that will vote for him (or against McCain) if he can just not be the scary black man.

By being respectful, not attacking, staying cool, not interrupting (successfully, anyway!) and just plain outclassing the old white guy, he won some of those voters over. By behaving like a total jerk, McCain lost more than a few.

Nailing McCain to the wall would have pleased me, but it wouldn't have made the headway with undecideds that NOT nailing him would have.

I agree, but I would add the following: there is a fundamental confusion about the nature of these debates. They are not sporting contests, in spite of the fact that pundits/journalists can't help but describe them in terms of knockouts and home runs.

The presidential debates are auditions. And Obama passed this one with flying colors.

“Why Obama and Paul Newman won the Debate”
http://msa4.wordpress.com/

Couldn't agree more, especially at this stage in the game.

Sometimes, when Obama does bring out some especially pointed attack on the trail or whatnot, I get the sense that he's partially doing it to rally his supporters (who periodically start sounding like the pundits). He's throwing us Scooby snacks, of a sort. "Okay, there's a little something. Now stay with me."

The oscillation on TPM threads between "OMG, Obama's so awful at this" to "OMG, Obama's so perfect at this" always turns on a moment of fire inserted into the national discourse (in an ad, on the stump, whatever). Then he turns back to the long view. Then eventually we start acting like myopic pundits again, and the cycle repeats.

I don't know how intentionally manipulative it is. It just seems like every time hand-wringing reaches a crescendo here Obama, almost like clockwork, does something to quell the discontent.