Matt Ortega

The reviews are already starting to come in:

NBC News online poll:

Greenberg focus group numbers show decisive victory for Obama:

The most striking result came on the favorability ratings. Although the focus group was officially undecided, it leaned towards McCain. Here were the favorability-unfavorability ratings for each candidate at the start:

McCain: 54 favorable / 34 unfavorable
Obama: 42 favorable / 42 unfavorable

Here’s what the ratings looked like after the debate:

McCain: 50 favorable / 48 unfavorable
Obama: 72 favorable / 22 unfavorable

ABC News: Sen. Obama also gets specific right away — looking right to the camera with his bailout package for the middle class. And if you’re looking for the first candidate to draw a distinction tonight, it’s Obama, not McCain. LINK

Washington Post (Chris Cillizza): Obama is ON message. A question about campaign finance and nasty campaigning becomes an economic answer. LINK

TIME: “Jobs.” And the dial lines go WHANGO! Obama should work “jobs” into every answer, including any about Bill Ayers. LINK

CNN (Bill Schneider): Obama’s answers during this first line of questioning appear crisp and clear, while McCain’s sound disconnected and rambling. LINK

ABC News: …McCain is still saying he’d balance the budget within four years? This is silliness, and I think McCain knows it. I look forward to his campaign explaining how, exactly, he’ll do this while extending the Bush tax cuts and funding bailouts. LINK

Washington Post Fact Check (Michael Dobbs): Joe the Plumber - John McCain raised the story of “Joe the Plumber” who ran into Barack Obama at a political rally in Toledo, Ohio, earlier this week. He depicted the plumber as an average American who will end up paying more taxes under the Obama plan. In fact, the plumber told Obama that he had plans to buy a company that would make more than $250,000 a year. Obama has conceded that his proposal to phase out the Bush tax cuts for high-income groups will lead to higher taxes for people making more than $250,000 a year. Obama told the plumber that he would face an increase in his marginal tax rate from 36 to 39 per cent, but Americans earning less than $250,000 a year would stand to gain under his proposal. LINK

NBC News (Mark Murray): McCain was wrong, however, when he said that 100% of his ads weren’t negative. According to a recent study by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, 100% of McCain’s ads have been negative. LINK

Washington Post Fact Check (Michael Dobbs): McCain exaggerated the closeness of the relationship between Obama and former Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers in claiming that his rival had “launched his political career” in Ayers’ living room. It is true that Obama attended a coffee meeting at Ayers’ home after he announced his intention to run for the state senate in September 2005. But according to Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, who has tracked Obama’s political career closely, the Ayers’ event was only one of a series of coffees in the Hyde Park community where he lived. The kickoff for Obama’s Senate run came at a meeting in the Hyde Park Ramada Inn on Sept. 19, 1995. LINK

TIME: McCain is flat-out lying about Obama’s health care plan. It is not government-run health care, and looks nothing like the Canadian system. LINK

Washington Post Fact Check (Glenn Kessler): John McCain made two assertions on corporate taxes, one that small businesses pay 50 percent of the taxes and the other that U.S. corporations are among the highest taxed in the world. Both are wrong. LINK

Washington Post Fact Check (Alec MacGillis): McCain said that ACORN, the large anti-poverty and affordable housing organization, is perpetrating one of the greatest voter frauds in the history of the country. This is greatly overstating the allegations that have been brought against the group in recent weeks. LINK

Washington Post (Chris Cillizza): The Fix- Again, lots of different attacks from McCain…hard for the average viewer to know what to take from debate. LINK

The Atlantic (Marc Ambinder): [Debates] are won on valence and visuals.  Emotions and body language. And tonight, we saw a McXplosion. Every single attack that Sen. McCain has ever wanted to make, he took the opportunity tonight to make.   Around 30 minutes in, McCain  seemed to surrender the debate to his frustrations, making it seem as if he just wanted the free television. His substance suffered; it didn’t make sense at times. He seemed personally offended  by negative ads; he tried to make a point about Obama’s character, but all the sleight were those Obama allegedly inflicted on Obama: the town halls, campaign finance, negative ads, etc. He allowed himself to get caught up in his own grievances. It was just plain unattractive on television. He moved quickly from William Ayers to taxes without a transition.  From Obama’s opposition to trade agreements to taxes.  No intermediate steps. Blizzards of words without unifying strings. The partisans want their candidates to say things that will make the self-same partisans feel good. So when McCain gets angry, lots of Republicans say: “Right on ya! ” as if persuadable voters are looking at the world through McCain’s eyes and harboring the same grudges and feeling offended by the same. I think these 20 minutes were McCain’s weakest of the three debates, at a time when he could least afford it. LINK

ABC News (George Stephanopoulos) McCain’s Best Debate, But Obama Still Won:  During a fast-paced, spirited, and sometimes heated debate, McCain had his best debate, but Obama still won. WINNER: Obama.

STRATEGY: Obama: A McCain: A

STYLE: Obama: A McCain: A-

ACCURACY: Obama: B McCain: B

LINK

Salon (Joan Walsh) McCain Loses Again: John McCain promised to kick Barack Obama’s “you know what” on Wednesday night. He hinted that he’d bring up former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers and worse. Instead McCain bludgeoned Obama with Joe the Plumber, and the effect was more farce than fierce….  McCain’s less-bad debate performance won’t change the downward arc of his campaign. The latest Los Angeles Times poll found him trailing Obama by nine points, and also showed that Sarah Palin is driving more voters away from McCain than she was pulling in. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the Republican National Committee is cutting off presidential advertising in Maine and Wisconsin, to focus on states like Colorado, Missouri, Indiana and Virginia. McCain needed a big win, and I haven’t heard anyone yet who thought he got it. CNN poll: Obama 58, McCain 31. LINK

Political Wire (Taegan Goddard): Sen. Barack Obama ultimately won the debate by repeatedly bringing it back to the issues. …. It was refreshing that Obama understands the important issues facing the country. He did a much better job than McCain simply explaining his own policy positions. LINK

The Hill (Sam Youngman) Analysis: McCain’s best likely not good enough: Sen. McCain (Ariz.), his back up against the wall as Democratic rival Barack Obama has started to pull away in the polls, demonstrated a new fire at the duo’s last debate. But the Arizona senator’s flurry of attacks and the Democrat’s calm, measured responses will likely do little to change the campaign trajectory. LINK

National Review (Ramesh Ponnuru) I Don’t See It: A couple folks here have been saying that McCain is doing better than in the previous two debates. I wish it were true, but I just don’t see it. I think a few times McCain has come across as spluttering. LINK

CNN  David Gergen 10:35PM  EST: “It then hit the personal animosity of the advertising and then I thought McCain swerved off track…He got overemotional about it. He looked angry. And it was almost an exercise in anger management up there for him to contain himself. And Obama maintained his cool, and I thought that changed the tone of the debate and Obama won the last half hour. I thought Obama really did well on education, abortion and health care.”

TIME (Jim Poniewozik) Women Don’t Like It: Dial group report 2: Um, Sen. McCain, women don’t like it when you put “health of the mother” in air quotes.  LINK

ABC News (Teddy Davis): McCain was wrong to state that small businessman “Joe the Plumber” would end up paying a fine if he refused to provide his workers with health insurance under Barack Obama’s health-care plan. Under the Obama plan, small businesses are exempted from a requirement imposed on large companies that they contribute to a national health fund if they fail to make “a meaningful contribution” to their employees’ health care costs. LINK

Talking Points Memo (Josh Marshall): A lot of the time, when Obama’s talking and they have the split screen, McCain looks like he’s about to explode. Not always, and I’m not trying to be hyperbolic. But he frequently looks like he’s about to snap. Not going nuts, but like he’s seething and just holding it in. Are other people seeing the same thing?  LINK

Washington Post (E.J. Dionne)-McCain Deepens His Own Hole: The poll specifically asked voters if their opinion of McCain had changed for the better or for the worse in “the past couple of weeks.” Only 7 percent said their view had changed in a positive direction; 21 percent said it had moved in a negative direction. Nearly a quarter of those who said their view of McCain had worsened cited his attacks on Obama as the reason for their change of heart; a fifth mentioned his selection of Palin. By contrast, 17 percent of voters said their view of Obama had improved; only 7 percent said it had worsened. LINK

TIME (Karen Tumulty): Obama seemed cool and collected, while McCain’s grimaces were painful to watch.  LINK

The American Prospect (Ezra Klein) - McCain scored the most points, and lost the debate. He was looking to land shots, and at times, succeeded. But the effort to find openings and vulnerabilities left him with little time to appear presidential. And if he connected with jabs, he never found his knockout blow. The attacks came at a cost, though: The angry energy McCain needed to sustain through the debate showed on his face as clearly as in his answers. CNN, at least, had the split screen, and McCain was grimacing, twitching, blinking, sighing, smirking, eye-rolling. LINK

FL – St. Petersburg Times (Editorial) “McCain’s last offensive:” On the same day a new poll showed that voters’ confidence in the federal government has reached an all-time low, Obama spoke with a reassuring confidence…But when the questioning turned to campaign attacks by both sides, McCain could not contain his anger and lost much of his momentum. He again floated some dark connection between Obama and 1960s-era antigovernment radical Bill Ayers. When that punch failed to ruffle Obama, McCain ramped up his intensity. The split television screen displayed a candidate who gradually appeared more frustrated, condescending and dismissive of one who would not take the bait. Those facial expressions will not play well in the coming days. LINK

WI – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Editorial) “The attack debate:” John McCain went into the final presidential debate on Wednesday looking for a game-changer, the need to reverse plummeting fortunes as measured by polls and likely fueled by national economic difficulties that do not favor members of the party now possessing the White House. Time - and an election - will tell, but our guess is that McCain missed the mark if that was his goal. LINK

MO – Kansas City Star (Editorial) “Attacks can’t shake Obama in debate:” Over the three presidential debates, Democrat Barack Obama has largely answered doubts about his readiness to be president of the United States. His unflappable temperament, thoughtful demeanor and rhetorical abilities were impressive. Republican John McCain’s performances were more uneven, becoming increasingly aggressive. LINK

MI - Detroit Free Press (Stephen Henderson) “Striving to get back in the game, McCain looks more desperate”: It was probably unrealistic for anyone to believe that Republican presidential candidate John McCain could right the sinking ship of his campaign with a debate performance, but Wednesday night’s encounter with Democrat Barack Obama only seemed to reinforce the idea that McCain is badly behind, and desperate. Here was McCain, answering a question about the negative tone of his campaign — and the very frightening tenor of recent rallies for McCain — by talking about the negativity of Obama’s campaign, saying Obama’s failure to agree to more than 10 town hall meetings was the reason things turned so negative. But overall, it was hard not to think of this campaign as largely over while watching the debate. Of course, anything can happen in the next few weeks, and history says the race will almost certainly tighten.  John McCain, though, looked like a guy about to lose and fully aware of the desperation of his circumstances. LINK

Des Moines Register (David Yepsen) “Obama Bests McCain In Final Debate” John McCain lost the final debate of the 2008 presidential campaign Wednesday night … McCain simply needed a breakout performance and he failed to provide one. He went into the forum trailing Obama in polls of the contest and he came out of in the same position. By doing so, McCain missed his biggest remaining opportunity to change the direction of the presidential contest. LINK

MN – Duluth News Tribune (Staff Written) “Local and national online polls give nod to Obama:” News Tribune readers who answered an unscientific online poll Wednesday said Sen. Barack Obama won the third and final presidential debate over Sen. John McCain. Of 112 readers who voted between 9:30 and 11 p.m., 59 percent said Obama won while 41 percent said McCain won. [According to one reader] “I felt that the cool, calm, collected nature of Barack Obama was welcomed and needed in these already stressful and uncertain times of crisis. To me the long-standing reputation of John McCain as a maverick and a reformer was overpowered by his cynicism, sarcasm and smugness.” [said] Adam White of Duluth. LINK

OH – Columbus Dispatch (Darrel Rowland) “Undecided’s dial it up for Obama:” Fifty women gathered in a Columbus hotel’s conference room and got to do what millions of Americans probably wanted to do last night: Tell the presidential candidates exactly what they thought of them….This group of undecided voters’ opinions were recorded every second of the 90-minute debate. The result? A major win for Democrat Barack Obama. Seventy-one percent of these undecided voters thought Obama did better in addressing the issues important to them, while only 9 percent felt that way about Republican John McCain. The group slightly favored Obama coming into the debate, but afterward he won support by about a 2-to-1 ratio. LINK

PA – The Philadelphia Inquirer (Larry Eichel) “Some jabs, but there was no knockout:” Republican John McCain, desperately trying to launch a comeback with less than three weeks to go, was on the offensive all night, intense and focused. But Democrat Barack Obama had the same calm and steady presence he’d shown in their two previous encounters, answering some of McCain’s attacks and shrugging off others, saying that the voters want to hear about their own problems instead. When it was all over, even though the debate was somewhat more contentious than the previous two, the likelihood was that nothing much had changed in the shape of the campaign. The first round of post-debate polls had Obama the overwhelming winner, as was the case in the previous two.  LINK

PA – Philadelphia Daily News (John Baer) It was an often angry, sometimes manic McCain trying to knock Obama off his cool at a time when voters are telling pollsters that they want a calm and steady hand steering the nation out of its economic crisis. Obama was his usual reserved self, often smiling and shaking his head instead of counterpunching. He patiently, even indulgently, explained and defended his programs and his campaign. LINK

New York Post (Kirsten Powers) “Bam Gets Job Done” Even when McCain was substantively on point, his body language and tone were a distraction. McCain’s facial expressions were akin to Al Gore’s sighs in the 2000 debates with George W. Bush.  At times McCain was downright nasty, speaking in sarcastic and condescending tones. Toward the end of the debate when they discussed education, McCain spoke to Obama with something bordering on disgust.  Considering polls show that voters already view the McCain campaign as overly negative, this behavior couldn’t have won over many people. LINK

Boston Globe (Editorial) “Scattershot McCain” John McCain’s fiery performance in the final presidential debate last night may have given a lift to some despondent supporters who have watched the election getting away from them. But it is less clear that McCain’s buckshot approach hit its target…The stock market is in freefall. Basic needs are more expensive than ever. The very planet is in peril. These are serious concerns that face America’s future. Yet, in a debate that McCain needed to win, he seemed fixated on some deluded throwback from the Vietnam era. LINK

Los Angeles Times (Editorial) “McCain’s debatable strategy” Throughout, Obama adopted a look of incredulity, but even his reserve was cracked by McCain’s pivot out of the politics of personal attack. Immediately after demanding that Obama provide a full accounting of his relationships with ACORN and Ayers, McCain asserted: “My campaign is about getting this economy back on track, about creating jobs, about a brighter future for America.” That disjointed segue was too much for Obama, who laughed. LINK

Boston Globe (Scot Lehigh) “It’s not even close”: John McCain came into the final presidential debate needing a game-changer, a Ronald Reagan moment, a Jerry Ford-like blunder by Barack Obama, something - anything - that would reverse the strengthening tide now running hard against him. He didn’t get it. Not even close. LINK

Washington Post (E.J. Dionne) He failed to rattle the ever-calm Obama. And it’s hard to see that anything McCain said last night repaired the damage done to his campaign by the economic crisis and his own handling of it. LINK

Boston Globe (Joan Vennochi) “That’s it for McCain”: Its Over. John McCain still hasn’t told the country why he should be president. He has talking points. He is against taxes, earmarks, and pork. But he can’t knit what he opposes into a coherent economic philosophy that would inspire voters to get behind him in the final days of this presidential campaign. He has an inspirational life story. But in this campaign, he never connected his biography to his presidential ambition, and he never told voters how it would shape a McCain administration and make him a better president than his opponent. LINK

New York Daily News (Thomas M. DeFrank) “Feisty John McCain works hard, can’t score” It was John McCain’s last big chance to tame the massive headwinds buffeting his fading campaign … Barack Obama came into the Hofstra debate handily ahead. Nothing Wednesday night altered that stark reality for McCain and his dispirited partisans.  LINK

New York Post (Carl Campanile) “Barack Rocks With Post Panel” The results are in and the winner is … Barack Obama … McCain’s decision to attack Obama for his associations with 1960s Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and the group ACORN backfired with The Post’s panel of voters. Upper West resident Anne Maxfield said, “Ayers was a terrorist 40 years ago. We have serious economic problems in this country.” LINK

Los Angeles Times (Cathleen Decker) John McCain came into the third and final presidential debate needing to somehow wrestle the campaign out of Barack Obama’s arms. He did not do it. There was no single moment that was likely to reverberate in the minds of American voters and change the course of an election that has moved dramatically toward Obama in the last several weeks. But the 90-minute debate was a perfect distillation of McCain’s general election campaign, with all of its inconsistent messages. LINK

TIME (David Von Drehle) “McCain Threw the Sink — and Plumber — But Obama Doesn’t Falter” The problem for McCain is that no matter how hard or how crisply he punched, it could not last. In the end, the gravity of the debate returned to Barack Obama. The turning point was when McCain finally brought up the issue of Obama’s ties to former the anti-Vietnam War terrorist William Ayers. All he accomplished was to swing the spotlight from himself back to the engaging newcomer. Predictably, Obama had a mild answer ready-as straightforward and uncontroversial as it was soothing… Mostly he tried to say that Obama-change is dangerous. Across the table, there sat Obama, looking not very dangerous.  LINK

Washington Post (Dana Milbank) Schieffer moved on to another question — and Ayers and ACORN, after a five-minute cameo, were gone. In those five minutes, the Republican nominee became the man America had seen in his ads, whose slashing personal attacks on his opponent’s character have, by most measures, done him more harm than good. Perhaps mindful of that, or perhaps set back by Obama’s mild responses to his attacks, McCain, though delivering sharper jabs than he had in the earlier debates, was unwilling, or unable, to mount a sustained effort to undermine Obama’s personal standing. LINK

New York Times (Patrick Healy) “Pressing All the Buttons, McCain Attacks, but Obama Stays Steady”: But then Mr. McCain began to undercut his own effort to paint Mr. Obama as just another negative politician. Mr. McCain grew angry as he attacked Mr. Obama over his ties to William Ayers, the Chicago professor who helped found the Weather Underground terrorism group. Suddenly, Mr. McCain was no longer gaining ground by showing command on the top issue for voters, the economy; he was turning tetchy over a 1960s radical…It seemed as if Mr. McCain was veering from one hot button to another, pressing them all, hoping to goad Mr. Obama into an outburst or a mistake that would alter the shape of the race in its last three weeks. LINK

Newsweek (Richard Wolffe) “Mad Man” McCain didn’t just need a game-changing moment at the debate; the Arizona senator, known in Washington for his sharp temper, needed a character-changing moment… Whatever happens in the next two weeks, the McCain campaign should be happy there are no more presidential debates. LINK

Boston Globe (Todd Domke) “Good, but not good enough”: John McCain needed to turn this third debate into a second chance. He needed to persuade undecided voters to look at him in a new, positive way and to look at Barack Obama in a new, negative way. He needed to change the dynamic of the contest because, ever since the economic crisis struck, Obama has had the advantages in message, momentum, money, and media…But it wasn’t the dramatic breakthrough he needed, so, in effect, he lost. LINK

The Hill (Sam Youngman) “Debate sees an aggressive McCain and a cool Obama:” With less than three weeks before Election Day, Sen. McCain (Ariz.) had promised to go after Obama more forcefully in their last meeting, and he did just that, accusing the Illinois senator of lying, wanting to raise taxes and associating with unscrupulous people and organizations. The Democrat, however, knowing that McCain needed a knockout blow, seemed to take McCain’s best punches, explaining himself when warranted and focusing on the ongoing financial crisis and domestic policy at other times. LINK

Politico (John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei) “Debate III: Edgy McCain sheds no new light”: John McCain’s challenge at the final debate was to present his case for the presidency in a new light. But over 90 minutes of intense exchanges with Barack Obama—sometimes compelling, often awkward—-there was very little new light, and no obvious reason for McCain to be optimistic that he has turned his troubled campaign in a new direction. To the contrary, what McCain offered at Hofstra University was simply a more intense, more glaring version of his campaign in familiar light —- an edgy, even angry performance that in many ways seemed like a metaphor for his unfocused, wildly improvisational campaign. LINK

Politico (Roger Simon) “McCain fails, Obama is not rattled”: John McCain needed a miracle in his final debate with Barack Obama on Wednesday night, a miracle that would wipe away McCain’s deficit in the polls and re-energize his flagging campaign. He did not get one. LINK