Legal Commentary

Is It Over For John McCain?

By Jeralyn

Immediately after the debate, David Gergen on CNN waxed on about how well John McCain did in the first 30 minutes of the debate. He said McCain blew it with his anger and Obama did best in the last 30 minutes. The video is here:

"It then hit the personal animosity of the advertising and then I thought McCain swerved off track...He got overemotional about it. He looked angry. And it was almost an exercise in anger management up there for him to contain himself. And Obama maintained his cool, and I thought that changed the tone of the debate and Obama won the last half hour. I thought Obama really did well on education, abortion and health care." Then the polls came in.

Later, after the polls came in and the focus group weighed in, Gergen said, it's clear McCain didn't do what he needed to do tonight and he should shift to figuring out how to save Republican House and Senate seats and ending the race with his dignity intact.[More...]

He's said it's not impossible for him to win, but close to that.

CNN announced another poll saysing more than 50% of the Independents watching the debate thought Obama won.

It seems unanimous among the news analysts that the Ayers attack didn't work.

I don't see how McCain turns this election around. Even a new, last minute attack will fall short because so many people will have voted before election day.

Nobody, other than the conservative base, liked McCain's smirking and condescending manner tonight.

CNN's John King now puts Obama at 277 electoral votes, more than enough to win. And that's with Colorado and Florida still being toss-ups. He says needs to turn a big blue state, like PA, red. But it's unlikely because PA is too blue right now -- Obama's up by 10 to 12 points there.

During a commercial break, an announcer touting CNN's upcoming election coverage asked if there would be recount like in 2004. They should redo that promo -- it looks more and more like it will be a blowout.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 16, 2008 (boomark / email).