The American presidential election (68)
The first of the four debates between the US presidential and vice-presidential candidates was held at 2 am British time, so we recorded it from CNN and watched it over breakfast this morning.
Here in the UK, we have nothing like these gladiatorial televised contests but, if we did, the moderator would have been sharper and more interventionist than the PBS guy.
I thought that Barack Obama was the more assured, confident and fluent, but John McCain scored the cruelest blow with his joke about the US and Iranian presidents sitting down to discuss Israel. I felt that Obama was a lot stronger in the early discussion of the financial crisis, but that McCain was a bit more heavyweight in the foreign affairs section later on.
Both candidates did well and the debate was high quality but, although I may be biased, I believe that Obama was the winner. This is the outcome suggested by the earliest poll. The time spent preparing for these debates, however, is exceeded only by the time spent spinning them as explained in this article.