The Debate: The Morning After

I went to sleep last night thinking the Presidential debate was pretty much of a yawn draw. I wake to find that it may have been an Obama win. What happened? Where have I failed?

Before I try answer that, let me say I seem to be in good company. Skimming my Google news feed, I find that a number of commentators followed the same trajectory: started by thinking it was a push, discovered to their surprise that their guy had scored. So, revise the question: where have we all failed?

I think the clue is that people who make this kind of judgment tend to be political junkies. For them (for me?) the debate ended up being a non-event: they'd heard it all before. They were waiting for a Lloyd Bentsen moment (or at least, for John McCain to pop his cork--Mrs. B.says, "for Captain Queeg to drop his marbles"). None of this happened; so, a non-event.

We'd forgotten that some people have lives don't give all their attention to politics. In particular, for a lot of people, Barack Obama is, if not exactly the anti-Christ, at best an unknown quantity. Some of them, when at last they tuned into the debate, were surprised that he did not have horns and a tail.

As a (somewhat lukewarm) Obama supporter, I suppose I should take heart from this news. Well I guess I'll lift my leg, but I won't dance. These things go in waves, and as Harold Macmillan Wilson (!) might have said had he lived long enough, a nanosecond is a long time in politics. Who knows what they will be thinking by Sunday night?

Footnote: Hey, what's the problem with festoon?