David, you are driving me crazy, with your "John McCain was wonderful!" insanity both Sunday and Monday on TRMS.

I watched the Saddleback Forum on the local Orange County channel, KDOC. There was a panel of two local anchors, and a Dem committee chairman, and a GOP committee chairman.
They discussed the debate during the breaks.

At the end, they were both asked how they would rate them. The GOP guy gave
Obama an A-, and McCain a B+. That was the local Orange county GOP guy. He thought Obama did slightly batter.

The Dem committee guy gave Obama an A+, and McCain a B-.

They pointed out that Obama had nothing to loose, and everything to gain, and he netted a gain.
He addressed moral questions with sincerity, and presented himself as a thoughtful, ethical Christian man. The best he could hope for was to peel off a percentage of young Evangelicals, and he probably did. He also had a chance of moving a block of undecided Roman Catholics.

McCain had little to gain. There were his people, rich, white, Orange County Republicans.

You thought McCain was connecting emotionally. I have heard that from a few men, both in person, and on the blogs. Maybe it is a testosterone thing! The only emotional moving McCain did was move me to work hard to repress the desire to throw something through the TV. Talked to several woman friends who watched the rerun, and none of them were moved. He was pitching a line. He was totally impersonal, presenting his "public persona" with canned stump speech riffs. He was NOT in personal, conversational mode, which was what the forum was supposed to be. The Evangelical woman who lives a few doors down thought McCain came across as a hypocrite, who was just into pandering for votes!

So, the beltway bubble boys say "McCain won" and it has to be true, because they don't really know anybody who is a real, ordinary person.

PLEASE, let Rachel do the "Chicken Little" routine, if she must, but one of you must keep a cool head. PLEASE!