Well, that didn’t go so well.

McCain keeps missing key areas to hit Obama during debates as well as on the stump.  Why does he keep letting Obama get away with the “95% of Americans will get a tax cut” crap? Forty percent of Americans don’t make enough money to pay taxes, and in fact, many of those get PAID on tax day through tax credits.  Several pundits also pointed out, as I do in my daily life, that a tax cut won’t do anyone a damn bit of good if they don’t have a job! 

And, I don’t think McCain explained very well that he is going to keep tax rates the same for individuals.  He also needed to hit Obama on the corporate tax rate issue, equating higher corporate taxes to jobs moving overseas and to higher household expenses because taxes are a cost of doing business and built into the cost of an item. 

McCain needed to push harder on foreign policy and have more specifics at hand, specifics that Obama can’t match.  He needed to quit harping on that “I know how to get Bin Laden, but I can’t tell you how, but I know, I really do” mantra.  He needed to call Obama on some of the nonsense that he spewed. 

I think McCain won, but he was expected to.  He didn’t knock it out of the park, though, and I think he needed to. 

Here’s more debate analysis:

Hot Air
Michelle Malkin
National Review
Patterico
The Weekly Standard Blog