My Night with Obama and McCain...

...wasn't as explosive as I hoped. I even popped some popcorn, ready to throw once McCain got into his condescending groove. It's almost 2am - yes, I missed the rerun of the rerun. Thankfully I could watch the whole debate on cnn.com. Here are a few, sometimes trivial, points of piqued interest:

• No pin on McCain! I suppose Palin's pin was big enough for both of them.
• There was Obama looking all presidential with his nice tie and pin, and then there was McCain looking like... a director of a funeral parlour about to give a eulogy.
• Too many mentions of Joe the Plumber - by my count (by name) 15 from McCain and 5 from Obama. Oh, and it wasn't just Joe for McCain, it was "My old buddy Joe the Plumber". If Obama mentions my name 15 times, can I be his old buddy?
• McCain didn't mention "middle class" at all. But then again, that really shouldn't come as a surprise, eh? After all, they are the most important consumption factor in the US today, and are generally neglected by the GOP.
• Obama was a little flat at the beginning, but picked up later. If you weren't sure this was the case, McCain emphasised it with his visibly increasing irritation, negative and angry body language, constantly interrupting Obama, increased stuttering and change of topic when he ran out of things to say.
  
• Glad to see that Obama was no longer reduced to "that one" who "doesn't understand".
• "I'm not Bush" was a brilliant rebuttal, but leaves me wondering who he is. He's changed his position several times on some issues, which made this statement lose a little punch for me.
• McCain referred to his campaign as "truthful". WHAT?!?!?
• It's Obama's fault that the Republicans went extremely negative on advertising, as he refused to do more town hall debates. Boo-hoo!
• Obama spent an unprecedented amount on attack ads. He stole the GOP's modus operandi and beat them at it. Boo-hoo!
• It seemed that every time Obama started to paint a vision, McCain interrupted. Maybe because he lacked his own vision?
• McCain on health care: "If you like that [Obama's plan], then you'll like Canada and England." So? Is he implying that's a bad thing? Canada and the UK (albeit their systems not being perfect) are both ranked higher than the US on WHO's ranking of health care systems, so I'm inclined to believe that's a good thing.

Good night and good luck.

(photo from nytimes.com)