Since the others covered the debate quite in depth, I’ll simply pick some exchanges that I think were important, and in which one of the candidates performed well, and it will be some loose observations.

The conversation about the economy – raising taxes, etc. – McCain undoubtedly hit Obama on that one. You could see from the look on Obama’s face he did not appreciate that one. McCain rightfully pointed out that Obama said he wants “spread the wealth around,” which means redistributing wealth. Obama tried to talk around it, but McCain slammed him with it again and again. Obama then said he believes he can raise taxes on people like “Warren Buffet,” the investor, to which McCain quickly responded, laughing, “we’re talking about Joe the plumber here.”

Now, it’s nice and all to make fun of “Joe the Plumber” and McCain using him, but what McCain does by referring to him is to make clear to voters that Obama is most certainly not talking about Warren Buffet and other billionaires. He’s talking about normal Americans, who worked hard all their lives, who are now in charge of their small businesses, but who will suffer when their taxes are increased. These aren’t all ‘investors’ like Warren Buffet, these are people who worked hard. That’s why it is so important for McCain to point that out time and again.

A tremendous line of the evening, that was truly strong, was when McCain said, while looking straight at his opponent, “Senator Obama, I’m not President Bush. If you wanted to run against Bush you should have run four years ago.” That was truly a great line, and, again, Obama knew it.

Obama was much stronger on the issue of negative campaigning, not because he played the victim, but because he did not, but because he said he thought most Americans would rather have them talking about issues that matter to them rather than about their own hurt feelings, while getting a shot in at McCain quite regularly. This subject was a loser to McCain; one get the impression he wanted to cry. Not exactly a ‘presidential’ picture.

Ayers was not a win for Obama – as Obama knows full well, whenever someone talks about one of your radical associates and former colleagues it’s never a good thing – but he did deal with it quite well, whereas McCain sometimes appeared as he did not know the real facts (Wright 101 is required reading material Mr. McCain) and, I think that this is the main problem with McCain talking about Bill Ayers: he refused to use these associations for months. But now, when he’s behind in the polls, he uses them nonetheless. Voters aren’t that stupid, they may know that the associations do indeed say something about Obama, but they’re also getting the distinct impression that they would not even have been talking about this issue if McCain was leading in the polls.

One big problem with McCain: his strange, dismissive smirk. It looks horrible and it gives people the impression he’s incredibly arrogant. Even when he’s making a good point, that smirk ruins it.

Obama has his own weakness: he seems annoyed, and his face showed it when McCain said something he didn’t quite like. That’s bad. Don’t show your emotions and don’t give people the impression you feel like you’re wasting your time (even if it’s true).