You can go to any number of news websites for super, in-depth analysis so I’m just going to give a few quick impressions I had from the debate.

I’m not sure why everyone keeps saying that McCain is so good in townhall style forums.  He seemed as awkward as he always looks to me.  I thought Obama was completely equal to him in the townhall setting.

If I was playing a drinking game where you had to take a drink every time McCain said “my friend” I would have been hammered by the end of the debate.

McCain is missing something from his funny.  I didn’t follow his attempts at cracking jokes and it was sort of awkward when he laughed after he made them and no one else was really laughing.  Some of his zinger attempts also made him look a little petulant.

I thought Obama was more articulate in explaining his viewpoint and laying out what plans he had.  Problem with that was when he dodged a simple direct question, which he number a number of times, there was absolutely no mistaking that he was completely dodging the question.  I’m not sure it could have been more obvious.  He might as well have said, “that’s a great question, but I’m not going to answer it b/c its too hard or it puts me in a situation that I don’t want to be in.”

Lastly, I don’t understand how McCain’s plan to have the government buy up all the bad mortgages would work.  How is that going to get paid for, and how will they get paid off?

Bottom line, I think they were relatively equal on substance, but Obama was better on style.  Though substance should matter more, style plays a huge part in presidential politics.

Update:  So I asked the McCain housing plan question too soon.  Listening to NPR on the way home from work, apparently the outline of the plan is to take some of the bailout money that was just passed to pay for the plan.  I don’t remember all of the details, but it didn’t seem near as far fetched when it was explained a little more thoroughly.