As a Matter of Fact, I Like Beer
Who "won" the debate? As usual, I will not presume to speak for the plain people of Peoria. But sticking to my personal reactions:
John McCain made some genuinely good points tonight. He scored a hit with his attack on Fannie and Freddie, he seemed aware that entitlements are going to be a problem down the road (though his "solutions" were inane), and his comparison of Barack Obama to Herbert Hoover was both surprising and on target. In the economic discussions, he made sense more often than Obama did. But that's a low bar to clear. McCain's repeated calls for the government to buy up bad mortgages, his obsession with the chimera of "energy independence," and his support for the Wall Street bailout should put to rest any lingering suspicion that he has a free-market heart.
In foreign policy, on the other hand, I have to give the edge to Obama. I didn't agree with everything he said, but his comment that John "Bomb Iran" McCain doesn't "speak softly" was as solid a punch as McCain's comment about Hoover. And I strongly suspect that it impressed more viewers.
The winner? As far as I'm concerned, it's Bell's Kalamazoo Stout. I'm on my third bottle.