I've watched so many debates, speeches, interviews and analysis in the past months that I didn't see much that was new in this debate (except for one dramatic and strange item I talk about below). It mostly seemed pretty familiar. In general, I think they both did a good job of stating their positions and both held their own. There were no knockouts and no serious flubs, so it was not a game-chagning debate with any surpirises.

If you want to call it a tie, then a tie always benefits the one in the lead, and right now that is Obama. I've seen a lot of polls that show most people think Obama won the debate, so that doesn't help McCain any and can only help Obama. This debate will not change the dynamic of the race except maybe to slightly bolster Obama's lead.

There was actually one new policy proposal that was pretty dramatic, but I found it very confusing. In the first part of the debate, McCain was talking about economic issues, and he said he would direct the Treasury Secretary to buy troubled mortgages from banks and renegotiate with the homeowners for lower principle balances and better loan terms so that they could stay in their homes. Holy crap! That's big! But the thing is that he didn't say much in the way of detail, and he didn't call it a new idea. It kind of just floated out there as if it was something he had always proposed. It wasn't clear if he was saying he wanted a new program or if he thought it was something already in the bailout/rescue package already passed last week, which I do not think it is.

Last night and even this morning most of the analysts were baffled by the mortgage bailout idea. These people are experts with access to insiders and no one knew what McCain was talking about. Mitt Romney is one of McCain's economic "surrogates," and he was interviewd after the debate, and he didn't know what it was. Most of the non-partisan analysts were scratching their heads and saying they would need to hear more about what the proposal is. Liberal partisans were doing about the same thing, but also asking about what the idea would cost. Conservative partisans were PISSED OFF and CRITICAL of McCain's idea! It seemed to me that they didn't know any more about the specifics than anyone else, but they seemed convinced it is something new and would only add hundreds of billions to the cost of the economic bailout, and they were ANGRY!

It is very confusing. I think McCain must have felt he needed to hold out something to ordinary people in trouble in their mortgages after the unpopular wall street baliout, so this was his idea to appeal to those ordinary people. But if that is the case, he totally bungled how he presented it. He didn't communicate it in a way that made it clear it was something new to help people, so he didn't get the benefit of people seeing how he was planning to help them. And he didn't prepare the ground with his conservative supporters so that they would not be blindsided and left trying to defend something they didn't even know what it was.

I watched one Fox News partisan commentator basically say that tonight was the night the ship of Republican fiscal responsibiltiy and free-market capitalism finally rolled over on its side and sank to the bottom of the ocean! She was saying that if she understood what he was talking about, and she had some kind of fact sheet that had been emailed to her during the debate, she thought this was a new idea that would cost about $300 billion and would "nationalize" the mortgage industry! Man, she was PISSED!

Today everyone is still puzzling over the proposal. Until I hear more about the specifics, I won't know what I think of the plan. But I know what I think of the rollout of the plan: It is a classic McCain erratic panic maneuver that is not well thought out. It's like it was completely out of the blue. I do not like McCain's decision-making process or his execution. He seemed erratic and unpredictable during the bailout negotiations. And this thing seems erratic too. Why would he decide to throw out a bombshell during the debate and not at least prepare his own side to defend it? If it is something new to appeal to people feeling the mortgage pinch, why not promote it better? As it stands, he gets no help from this from the voters he is probably trying to reach, and he pisses off the conservative supporters who see it costing too much and who were kept in the dark. Today it is a day later, and still no one really knows what he was talking about.