As the candidates and their spouses waved from the Hofstra stage, Brooks was digging McCain’s campaign a grave: "I guess I think not. I thought he landed some blows but underlying theme of this whole campaign, Obama mentions it’s been 20 months, has been Obama’s temperament. The man is calm. The man is unflappable. It’s like the redwood forest. You can lob some cannonballs into it and McCain lobbed some balls into it, and I thought he scored some points, but it doesn't seem to affect the forest. And for a country that is looking for reassurance, something change but something presidential, Obama delivered that again. I think he elides tough issues, but he doesn't change. And I think that's the fundamental source of comfort for people who are looking for a candidate."
Lehrer turned to Mark Shields: "Do you see the same thing, Mark?"
Shields agreed: "I guess I do, Jim. I don't think that it was, in the parlance of this year, a game-changer that we were looking for, that John McCain was looking for. He was more aggressive, I think, surprisingly aggressive given the format of sitting at the table....But I will say about Obama, he did not sit on his lead. I mean, he did engage, he did rebut, he did respond. I think that worked for him tonight. And there is just an eerie almost coolness about him. You know he can move people, you wonder what's going to move him. I mean, he's just really remarkable that way in a time of crisis."
Lehrer asked Brooks: "What do you think the high points are, or do you have a list?" Brooks went negative, and personal: "I have low points. Again, I think it's overall demeanor that people are looking for, and McCain seemed tight and hard to live with for four years. Do you want this man on your TV set for four years? Whereas Obama was somebody you can live with."
Later, Lehrer asked historian Michael Beschloss: "What did you think of the personal stuff that finally came up, with Bob Schieffer's question about, the high road, the high road question we will call it, how did you think that went for both of them?"
This prompted a lecture about the dangers of perpetually ineffective Republican attack politics against Bill Clinton or Obama: "I think John McCain really hurt himself. Because one feature of these debates is that when a candidate really tries to go on the attack, especially in a personal way, almost always hurts himself. Remember when George H.W. Bush, who was a rather gentlemanly guy, out of frustration against Bill Clinton began saying, ‘I just don't know about a guy who demonstrated on foreign soil against the United States, made this mysterious visit to Moscow,’ it only diminished him. Made him look almost desperate. Didn't help Bob Dole in 1996 when he tried to do the same thing in the debates against Bill Clinton. So one of the things about not only these debates, but especially this format where you have the two sitting at a table, I just don't know how a candidate can bring up things like that, that are pretty negative and antagonistic, and in a way not hurt himself with a lot of voters."
Lehrer turned to Clarence Page and clarified: "Clarence, how about the fact though that this was brought up not by John McCain, it was actually brought up by Bob Schieffer as a subject, something to talk about. How did you, you feel McCain hurt himself?"
Page replied: "He seems to be kind of stuck in first degree with that attack strategy. It has helped him firm up his base, but it hasn't helped him with the swing voters that he needs right now when we’re less than a month to Election Day."
NPR reporter Don Gonyea captured the mood at Obama HQ: "Now, they did come into the debate anticipating that there would be direct attacks by John McCain. And we did hear Bill Ayers mentioned. We did hear ACORN mentioned. What you saw from Senator Obama, and this was part of the plan -- very simple, pretty clean, direct answers to those charges, to those issues."
Gonyea recalled that Obama called Ayers the current "centerpiece" of the McCain campaign. NPR reporter Scott Horsley interjected: "I think it’s safe to say that Senator McCain is not making Bill Ayers the centerpiece of at least what he is saying on the stump. They still air negative ads, they still bring up his name on conference calls with reporters. But Senator McCain himself has not been talking a lot about Bill Ayers on the stump this week. I think they realize that it's not working for them."
On the question of whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be vice president, Clarence Page declared: "This was one where Obama sat on his lead. It's been -- we've seen so much satire about Senator Palin [sic] and her bump in the polls has faded, I think the Obama campaign says, ‘don't interrupt your opponent while they're destroying themselves.’"
Walter added: "Sarah Palin has been unleashed by the McCain campaign to be attack dog. It has taken a toll on her ratings. It has not helped the McCain campaign reach out to women voters. In fact the gender gap has opened pretty significantly in Barack Obama's advantage. So I think she has become less -- much more of a non-factor."
Brooks wrapped up the half hour with the goodbye kiss-off: "The landscape was so biased against McCain. I mean, for all sorts of reasons, he needed Obama to really mess up for him to have a chance. And Obama didn't, he went through 20 months. I thought he violated his principles on the public financing, but basically, no mess ups. I can say after these three debates McCain will probably lose. But he can say, I ran a good campaign, I debated well, I did fine."
Here’s the Brooks gush for Obama on Charlie Rose:
"I thought Obama had the night he needed to have. You know, through this whole 20 month marathon, I think what struck me is how incredibly even he is. And how frankly reassuring he is. It is like you’re camping, and you wake up one morning, and there is a mountain. And then the next morning, there is a mountain, and there’s the next morning, there’s a mountain. Obama is just the mountain. He is just there. He is always the same, he doesn't hurt himself. McCain can sometimes lob a cannonball at the mountain, but the mountain doesn't move, and the mountain doesn't care. And so I think his steadiness, his temperament has been the dramatic theme of this campaign, dramatic in being undramatic. And it was on display tonight. And the good part of the mountain is that he is reassuring and reliable."
