I had an interesting night last night, having live-blogged the debate from a friend’s bar in Brooklyn.  I was the only conservative among a crowd of 50.  I actually managed to have a few great conversations and if anything, I was impressed by the lack of nutiness with those I spoke.  Not, however, with others in the crowd, who made one old man joke and snicker after another.

When the debate ended I felt alright about it.  I knew McCain hadn’t changed the race much and had the upper hand in foreign affairs.  I also knew that Obama schooled him on economic issues.  As I quoted someone last night, “You can’t out liberal a liberal.” But having slept on it, I much more unhappy about how the debate went.  The format was miserable, and not a single character question came up.  I still think it was smart of McCain not to force the issue, as it would have looked quite petty if it was brought up unprompted.  Overall though, McCain let slip another opportunity to expose Obama as a radical, which he clearly is.  Andy McCarthy at the corner sums it up like this:

Memo to McCain Campaign:  Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn’t; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he’s qualified for public office.  You helped portray Obama as a clealy qualified presidential candidate who would fight terrorists.

If that’s what the public thinks, good luck trying to win this thing.

With due respect, I think tonight was a disaster for our side.  I’m dumbfounded that no one else seems to think so.  Obama did everything he needed to do, McCain did nothing he needed to do.  What am I missing?

Read his entire post here.

I’m afraid he’s got it right.  Time is slipping by.

UPDATE:  Well, at least there’s this, from Mark Steyn.

Before everyone succumbs to a terminal case of inevitabilititis, it’s worth remembering we’ve been here before. In the last months of the primary campaign, the press kept assuring Hillary fans that Obama’s victory was inevitable and the shriller the media Obamaboppers got, the more bluecollar Dems sat on their hands. In the end all the King’s horses and all the King’s men had to drag the guy across the finish line. You couldn’t replay his spectacular victory in slow-motion because it was already slower than any slo-mo technology ever invented.

So we already know there’s a huge disconnect between the unstoppable Messianic force promoted by the media and the cooler appraisal by actual voters. What’s happened since primary season? The Iraq surge (McCain’s unique selling point) is a victim of its own success and has dwindled away to an irrelevant footnote, and the front pages are full of a supposed economic catastrophe which the crude rules of politics suggest any fool should be able to hang on the incumbent.

Yet Obama still can’t open up a solid lead. After all, why would record numbers of viewers watch the vice-presidential debate if the election’s already over?

The whole post is here.

Thank you Mark, we needed that.