10/7/08: And the Winner is : Obama - again!!

So the second Presidential debate - in McCain's favored townhall format - just ended. And the winner this time, by an even bigger margin than in the first debate was Senator Barack Obama! In all 3 online polls within half hour of the debate, Obama was voted the winner by an enormous margin of 81-85% vs 12-15% for McCain. In the phone poll conducted by CNN after the debate, Obama was again the winner by 54% to 30% for McCain - in this poll, the voters were 38% Democrats and 31% Republican - fairly similar to the national averages.

Here are the results at 9pm:


Other results from the polls show that Obama's favorable votes went up 4% to 64%, while McCain's stayed unchanged at 51%.
And the pundits at CNN generally agree - Obama gets 2 As and 3Bs, and McCain gets 1 B and 4 Cs. All agreed that Obama looked and acted Presidential, was clear and articulate, and came across as likable. McCain had nothing new to say, came across as overly aggressive and not very likable. The online voters gave Obama a B and McCain a D.

So, what does this mean? Well, the difference between the online and phone polls shows that Democrats apparently are more internet-savvy than Republicans! heh,heh..

But snarkiness aside, what it really means is that if McCain had a hill to climb before the debate, now he has to climb a mountain. There's only more debate left, and unless he pulls some enormous rabbit of the hat, his goose appears to be cooked.

But folks, as I said before, none of this means anything, unless people actually get their ballots in one way or the other, so don't relax just yet - mobilize, mobilize, mobilize!!!

But for now, I'm off to pop the cork on my third bottle of champagne..