Tuning into the debate south of the border after having some fun on CBC’s YourTurn, I really love contributing to that show. Live blogging begins: 

9:12 PM: McCain looks tired, Obama looks sharp.

9:28 PM: I am not a fan of these scores cards that are shown left, right, and bottom of the screen. It destructs people from making their own opinions (note: the score cards on the left and right are only seen on CNN HD)

9:34 PM: McCain just dropped a bomb: “I think we should have a spending freeze on everything except for defense.” What? Obama countered by saying there is a way to cut spending and spend in areas that would benefit Americans.

9:50 PM: McCain is getting angry, thats exactly the opposite of what he needs to do. Obama is looking confident and cool under fire.

10:30 PM: Surprisingly, I think McCain failed to really shine in this debate on foreign affairs. Obama is countering everything McCain is throwing at him and managing to make his point very clearly. I think the story line is that McCain could not outshine Obama on foreign affairs and that is very important. If McCain can’t beat Obama on foreign policy, he will loose the election because Obama will beat him on the economy.

10:40 PM: Here is the story: Obama won on the economy and tied on foreign policy, advantage Obama. Obama did well and McCain really didn’t do as well as everyone expected. Obama won by a landslide on the economy, it wasn’t even close. On foreign policy, Obama “held his own,” as a CNN analyst commented, I agree with that. So if you had to take both rounds into account, advantage Obama. For McCain, this is bad news because he really needed to pull one out of the bag on this one and he failed to deliver. The result? Obama will continue to increase his lead in the polls as McCain tries to get a crash course in economics.

Well, there you have it, great debate. Next week will be the VP debate which just happens to be at the same time as the Canadian election debate. I, of coarse, plan to watch the Canadian debate but I can imagine it will be an interesting dilemma for many canadians.