The primary takeaway from last night is visual - and the visual really does tell the story of this campaign.
The looks on McCain’s face during those cutaway shots were the modern equivalent of Al Gore’s heavy sighing during the 2000 debates. I mean, the exact same thing.
Via Josh Marshall, Amy Sullivan of Time notes:
In politics […]

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Not going to live-blog this, but just wanted to note: When Obama is speaking and the camera is showing both candidates, watch the look on McCain’s face.
The cat who thinks he ate the canary.
Update: Here it is:

Update II: And this:

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Dow ends day down 733. But McCain is going to talk Ayers - maybe even Wright! - tonight.
Yeah, that’s relevant.

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Please tell me I don’t have to sit through another debate tonight.
Actually, tonight’s debate might be the liveliest of the three - with McCain saying he’s going to bring up the Ayers nonsense. But in that he’s telegraphed that punch, Obama will of course be ready for it.
But more than that. If this is the […]

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Good.
Indeed, [McCain] just snatched the microphone out the hands of a woman who began her question with, “I’m scared of Barack Obama… he’s an Arab terrorist…”
“No, no ma’am,” he interrupted. “He’s a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements.”
That’s exactly what he needed to do - so credit where credit is […]

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Joe Biden, today:
“All of the things they said about Barack Obama in the TV, on the TV, at their rallies, and now on YouTube … John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him,” Biden said this morning. “In my neighborhood, when you’ve got […]

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…as Gen. Petraeus suggests talking to the Taliban.

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George Will gets it:
This, McCain and his female Sancho Panza say, is demonstrated by bad associations Obama had in Chicago, such as with William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. But the McCain-Palin charges have come just as the Obama campaign is benefiting from a mass mailing it is not paying for. Many millions of American households […]

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Obama tells Charlie Gibson:
“I am surprised that, you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days, that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face.”
Right. Because the crowd at the debate wasn’t filled with rabid, drooling partisans. And again, except for the wingers, […]

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Wha?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYFm5kK4f1k

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Good piece by Daniel Larison:
The reason why McCain was smart, if gutless, to avoid talking about Obama’s associations last night is that he and his advisors seem finally to have recognized that invoking Ayers is not an effective tactic.  This is remarkable because this tactic is incredibly popular among people on the right who think that talking […]

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Hm. Reading the debate reax, there seems to be a solid sense that Obama was the clear winner - if only because McCain, running behind, needed to score big, and didn’t.
I watched the debate and thought it a disappointment - on both sides. I’m sick of the talking points, you know? In a setting like […]

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Cindy McCain:
McCain, who stopped to visit a half-dozen children at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt today, said the presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has “waged the dirtiest campaign in American history,” and her husband Sen. John McCain will use tonight’s debate to correct the distortions.
I’m reminded here of Mr. Subliminal, a character […]

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Stocks plunging in Europe and Asia.
Good morning!
Speaking of financial crises, it strikes me that as Sen. McCain goes all negative, all the time this week, we’re going to be talking about another financial crisis - the Keating Five scandal, in which McCain was a central figure.  The Obama campaign has created a helpful Web site, […]

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Man. Sure been partisan around these parts, huh? The GOP would never…
Oh. Right.
Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama’s character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat’s judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans […]

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Not a good sign for his campaign.

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John McCain: “I’m not a rich man.”
Hate ta tell ya, Johnny - but you are:
Of course, McCain — who owns roughly eight homes and 13 cars — has always had a bizarre definition of rich. When Pastor Rick Warren asked him to “define rich,” McCain responded with a joke, asking, “How about $5 million?” In […]

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John Cole on the emerging meme of John McCain as a jerk - and why it’s a problem for the McCain campaign.

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Thinking back on the debate last night, I think it’s fair that most sources are calling it a tie. Both candidates did fairly well, sticking to their respective scripts; not a whole lot of winging it. It’s sort of a drawback of our over-scripted democracy that it’s hard to really get at a candidate’s thought […]

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McCain’s pissed. Petulant. You can tell he doesn’t respect Obama at all. He won’t even look at Obama - while Obama’s taking it right to McCain. And, Sen. McCain, you said this… right to him. McCain seems to be reluctant to try and land a punch directly. He speaks to the air. Won’t even turn […]

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