McCain returns just in time

Roger Simon:

John McCain was very lucky that he decided to show up for the first presidential debate in Oxford, Miss., Friday night. Because he gave one of his strongest debate performances ever.

While Barack Obama repeatedly tried to link McCain to the very unpopular George W. Bush, Bush’s name will not be on the ballot in November and McCain’s will.

And McCain not only found a central theme but hit on it repeatedly. Obama is inexperienced, naive, and just doesn’t understand things, McCain said.

Sure, McCain is a pretty old guy for a presidential candidate, but he showed the old guy did not mind mixing it up. He stood behind a lectern for 90 minutes without a break — you try that when you are 72 — and he not only gave as good as he got, he seemed to relish it more.

At least twice after sharp attacks by McCain, Obama seemed to look to moderator Jim Lehrer for help, saying to Lehrer, “Let’s move on.”

True, the majority of the debate was fought on McCain’s strongest ground: foreign affairs. And true, McCain’s feet were not held to the fire as to why he urged the postponement of the debate in order to secure a financial bailout package in Washington, but then decided to show up without any such agreement in hand.

But it didn’t seem to matter much. McCain just pounded away on his central argument: Obama just didn’t “understand” how to deal with Pakistan; how dangerous it is to meet with foreign leaders without preconditions; how serious the Russian invasion of Georgia was; the price of failure in Iraq.

“He doesn’t understand, he doesn’t get it,” McCain said of Obama, also saying, “There is a little bit of naiveté here.”

It was as if McCain was paying Obama back for that moment in Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention when Obama said McCain would not serve America well, “not because John McCain doesn’t care; it’s because John McCain doesn’t get it.”

But McCain seemed to get it Friday night. He certainly knew enough to try to turn his age into a plus and not a minus. “There are some advantages to experience, knowledge and judgment,” McCain said.

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A CNN poll said that Obama won but it was admittedly skewed by a Democrat bias of 41 percent of those responding and only 27 percent Republican. I think pollsters are being mislead still by Rush Limbaugh's operation chaos which upped Democrat registration because Republicans and conservatives crossed over to vote against Obama and help Hillary carry several large states. That is also why you are seeing a lot of Hillary voters who will not vote for Obama.

I think Simon is closer to the mark than the Democrats in this poll.