(AP Photo)

If John McCain goes on to win this election, I believe pundits will point to tonight’s town-hall style debate as the starting point of his come-from-behind drive. McCain made from a huge jump up from the first debate in that he was more personable and human, serious when he needed to be, but he ably worked in some humor at several points. McCain also knew when to break the debate rules for a good cause, such as when he interrupted Tom Brokaw to quickly point out that Barack Obama had failed to address McCain’s earlier challenge of spelling out the financial penalties for failing to buy insurance under Obama’s health care plan.

On the other hand, Obama seemed to repeatedly break the rules simply to ramble on past the time limits, even after being indirectly admonished by Brokaw. Now, I will say Obama was more impressive tonight than I expected. He was generally comfortable in this format and eloquent. When Brokaw wouldn’t let Obama get in follow-up response during a discussion on tax policies, he effectively worked his thoughts in anyway as part of his answer to the next question about Social Security and Medicare.

But Obama spent much of the 90 minutes repeating the same phrases and attacks on McCain that Obama used in the last debate and in recent weeks on the campaign trail. McCain stood out a little more because he had several fresh things to say. He probably gave heart attacks to more than a few conservative Republicans when he opened with a commitment for the federal government to buy up every individual bad home mortgage in the country. But at least it was something different from the previous debate for viewers to chew on.

I thought McCain generally improved his performance on the economic crisis and other domestic matters. He sounded more thoughtful, instead of constantly repeating talking points. And he was darn impressive during the 20 or so minutes on foreign policy issues (Although, I would urge him to come up with new material when he talks about Russia’s Vladamir Putin).

Obama didn’t make any mistakes, so tonight’s debate might not make any difference in the election. But McCain gave undecided voters a slightly improved view than they’ve seen before, while Obama looked pretty much the same. That could make a difference if the election turns out to be close.

 (AP photo)

Sen. John McCain went through almost the entire debate Friday without a single mention of his days as a Vietnam POW. In fact, if the debate had ended after 90 minutes as advertised, that issue would have stayed off the stage. So maybe that’s why a Barack Obama-friendly audience in downtown Phoenix gave one of its loudest responses all night — a rolling, unified groan of disgust — when McCain managed to slip in a POW reference about five minutes into overtime.

I had already attended several election events this year around the Valley sponsored by the McCain campaign. So I decided to watch Friday’s debate from the Democratic perspective. The Obama campaign threw a viewing party outside its Arizona headquarters, a converted house that’s for sale at Roosevelt and Sixth streets. More than 130 folding chairs from the United Commercial and Food Workers union were set up in a parking lot behind the house. The campaign projected a live Web video stream from C-SPAN onto a second building facing Roosevelt. Within 30 minutes after the debate started, all of the chairs were full and more Obama fans were standing in a semi-circle behind them.

The crowd was strangely quiet through much of the debate, listening intently as Obama and McCain fired back and forth in a free-wheeling contest of which moderator Jim Lehrer lost nearly all control. Obama’s backers did loosen up with a few rounds of applause and the occasional cheer after Obama delivered some one-liners. But some people also weirdly cheered a couple of times after McCain repeated an Obama comment in order to bring home his own argument.

So, I expected a boisterous pep rally and instead attended a mostly studious affair. Ken Clark, a Democratic activist and former state lawmaker from Phoenix gave a great explanation as to why:

“It was thick, fiberous and chewy,” Clark said. “And I don’t mean that in a bad way. I don’t believe I have ever seen them get so in-depth in past presidential debates. They usually focus more on firing those zingers at each other.”

Clark was right. Obama needed to demonstrate he has command of a lot of different facts and ideas, and that he can think quickly and speak well without a Teleprompter. He succeeded, to the likely horror of many Republicans who have predicting for weeks that Obama would fall on his face in the debates.

Meanwhile, McCain went to Mississippi bristling with examples of where he has been involved in national and foreign affairs, and was determined to cram every one of them into the debate. The Democrats outside Obama’s Arizona headquarters tried to dismiss McCain’s experience as meaningless or too close to President Bush. But I though he did a great job of presenting his case to those middle-of-the-road voters expected to ultimately decide the Nov. 4 outcome.

All of this means I don’t believe there was a clear winner from Friday’s debate. I can’t wait to see and hear what other people think.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is planning another outdoor viewing party for the vice presidential debate on Thursday. I’ll say one thing, they had better figure out how to improve the video feed. The frequent freezes of the campaign’s Internet connection annoyed many in the audience, and I doubt next week’s crowd will be as patient as they were tonight. Democrats are eager to see Joe Biden tear into Sarah Palin. I wonder if she will manage to disappoint as many critics as Obama did tonight.