Admittedly, I am opposed to Obama, but I can't say I am all that excited about McCain, either.
He did not articulate what caused the current financial crisis when Obama left him an opening with "the failed policies of the last eight years." He could have - and should have - pounced on the long history that stretches back to 90's and social engineering through a government-run "private" enterprise. And he should have said that government has no business in this market under our Constitution and the fact that he was among the first to call attention to its abuses. He could have even named names...
He should have hammered Obama on taxes.
• Obama said that McCain wanted to lower corporate taxes, and McCain should have lowered the boom on who actually pays corporate taxes.
• Obama said that he was going to lower taxes for 95% of American workers. That is impossible, since about 40-45% of workers don't pay income taxes at all!
• McCain should have been even more forceful on Obama's spending plans - almost $1 trillion dollars in new programs! When Obama said he was going to close corporate loopholes to pay for them, McCain should have pointed out that there are not a trillion dollars of loopholes left. He should have nailed him on the nationalization of healthcare.
• Obama never listed a single item in his spending agenda that he could cut in light of the $700 billion bailout package. McCain should have pounced on this as typical of the tax-and-spend liberal crowd.
When he got to foreign policy, McCain did okay. He obviously knows his stuff.
McCain spent far too much time bashing Republicans, and never once took on the Democrats. Granted, the Republicans squandered their majority in both houses of Congress, and I don't think they deserved to hold it. But when the titular head of your party bashes you, it doesn't really inspire a whole lot of confidence.
There are certainly areas in which the Democrats should shoulder their share of the blame. The Dems are also responsible for the current energy situation. The Democrats even thought it was more important to take an August vacation - instead of taking action - while the American people paid $4.00 per gallon for gasoline that fuels the engine of our economy.
They imposed the ban on off-shore drilling, the creation of the Grand Escalante Staircase National Monument (which put tremendous amounts of low-sulfur coal out of reach to mining for power generation), the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (and the ban on drilling for oil and natural gas there), the piling on of endless regulations that have kept us from building a nuclear power plant or oil refinery in over thirty years, among other things that are much more important than saying that we don't need another "stubborn" President.
Best one-liner of the night:
McCain just said, in regard to sitting down and talking to our adversaries (Iran, Korea, Syria) without preconditions, "I will not set the White House visitors schedule before I am elected. Heck, I don't even have a seal, yet!"
McCain limped home with this one, in my humble opinion. But just barely.