And the debates are over

It was the most interesting debate so far even if a lot of it was rehashed. I'm sure the McCain campaign was very happy the candidates were sitting this time so they wouldn't have to worry about McCain's aimless wandering that took place during the town hall debate. Although John McCain once again starts of a debate telling us someone is in the hospital, I guess at his age hospitals weigh heavily on his mind.

Overall, Obama won this one again making it a clean sweep (and it's not just me saying this nearly ever poll agrees-- CNN and CBS are the only polls I can find up right now).

The questions were varied and actually covered new ground and the moderator did a good job and got the candidates to actually address the questions (well, more so than usual anyway). Most of the answers were still the same old responses we've heard twice before but there was some new stuff that made the 90 minutes at least tolerable.

There were a few good lines during the night. McCain finally had a good line that someone other than himself laughed at (although he still had a few clunkers) when saying "I am not President Bush, If you want to run against president Bush, you should have ran 4 years ago". It was a good line and all the post-debate coverage focused on it however I feel Obama's line in response to McCain quoting ridiculous lines was better: "He must have been watching some ads of Senator McCain".

McCain once again looked angry and barely in control for portions of the debate and Obama kept cool and appeared presidential. Hopefully, the trends in the polls continue and we'll have a new direction to the country in three weeks (OK, the actual new direction wouldn't technically start until January but the hope would be there and isn't Obama all about hope?)

P.S. McCain kept talking about how Palin knows more about autism than most people and I am confused as to why he feels this is true. Last I knew her son had Down Syndrome which is completely independent of autism (you can have one and not the other or you can have both). You'd think he'd know the difference. He also noted that she would defend and help special needs families without mentioning the fact that she cut funding to them before.