England for Obama

Obama and Biden hit the post-debate stump in North Carolina today. Here was part of Senator O’s speech:

If you don’t have 96 minutes to spare: here’s footage and initial analysis from Keith Olbermann (and Richard Wolfe):

More of this next time, please:

Actually went to bed last night? Fear not - here’s the debate in all its 96-minute glory:

According to the American people, that is.

Yes, while many of the pundits in the mainstream media - and bloggers like me - thought that last night’s presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain would be seen as a tie, it seems that the American public felt differently.

And felt differently in a very, very good way.

The post-debate polls of undecided voters went massively in Obama’s favour. Why, even a focus group of undecideds covered by Fox - Fox! - declared Obama the winner:

Here’s a round-up of the poll figures. As Kos says over on Daily Kos:

“Given the CNN and CBS polling, the public has overwhelmingly crowned Obama the winner of the debate. It seems that Republicans spent so much time trashing Obama’s “lack of experience” and “lack of judgment” on national security, that expectations were ridiculously low, and as a result, people were pleasantly (and happily) surprised.

Kind of imagine Sarah Palin, who we’ve all come to see as a blithering idiot, turning in a performance the caliber of Obama’s tonight - she would all the much stronger for it, no matter if on the merits, she merely equaled Joe Biden. That’s what apparently happened tonight.

And those snap polls are apparently driving much of tonight’s media narrative. That and McCain’s inability to look Obama in the eye.”

What’s the word I’m looking for…?

Ah, that’s it: ‘Presidential’.

So, in fact, there’s nothing major to report this morning following yesterday’s bombshell from John McCain. Except that - as I wrote in my comment to P Grecco last night - it’s come out that the Republican camp want to push the presidential debate back to October 2, which is, surprise surprise!, the date that the vice presidential debate is due to take place. ie. they want to push that back too, to an unspecified date. Ideally, presumably, ‘never’.

Could this possibly be because they fear that Sarah Palin is at best unprepared for, or at worst unable to cope with, her debate with Joe Biden? Could this entire ‘rushing to Washington’ thing have been purposely constructed in order to push back - or even eliminate - as many debates as possible? I wouldn’t put it past the GOP.

For what it’s worth - and it actually is worth quite a lot - polls of American people on various news sites seem to show that the overwhelming majority think the debate this Friday should still go on (looks like McCain got the public opinion wrong on this one - oops); and the debate commission is also insisting, along with Obama, that it goes ahead.

In the meantime, both Barack Obama and John McCain are going to be in Washington today, at the invitation of George Bush - although apparently this invite was extended months ago - and there were some big TV moments yesterday.

Firstly, George Bush addressed the nation about the economic crisis and the proposed bailout plan. Here’s the MSNBC Nightly News team analysing what was, essentially, a sales pitch:

Secondly, The Late Show With David Letterman saw its host rip into John McCain, who was supposed to be appearing on it but pulled out at the last minute due to his rush to Washington (only it turns out he was in the studio next door):

And thirdly, video of Katie Couric’s Monday night interview with Sarah Palin appeared on YouTube (my jaw, which had been slowly moving towards the floor, actually hit it on Palin’s last line):

MSNBC covers Barack Obama’s performance in Florida this week - and Matt Lauer interviews him. Matt Lauer also wastes valuable interviewing time asking him about swapping Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton. Erm, right - ‘cos that’s gonna happen:

Rachel Maddow takes a look at the latest polling figures in the crucial states come November 4. In a nutshell: it’s tight.

*Update* Take a look at the latest national poll.