Having slept on it, I think I can better express the reason that I was not impressed with the debate last night.
Obama is a cautious debater, and thus, is by his very nature unlikely to express passion.
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John McCain is passionate about the war on terror and earmarks, but -- for whatever reason -- that passion did not come through last night (even though the debate was ostensibly on foreign policy).
Could it be that McCain -- who had taken a very bold step earlier in the week when he threatened to postpone the debate -- had decided that he was in danger of being too bold?
More likely, this was an example of two fellows who (with the exception of McCain's passion over the war on terror) who put pragmatism and compromise ahead of ideology.
Imagine what Newt Gingrich would have said last night. He might have showed up and immediately said that Barack Obama wants to bail out the big-wigs on Wall Street who created this mess -- but that he is going to help craft some good legislation for the American people that will fix this mess while averting a socialist solution.
Of course, we would have eaten that up!
There were no zingers last night -- primarily because the candidates lack the ideological passion to say such "dangerous" things.
This is what we get for nominating two senators...
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