I just finished watching the second Presidential Debate, which I also Twittered during for class. Unfortunately, it seems like there’s a substantial lag going on in the hashtag (#umassprez2) so I haven’t seen everyone’s posts about the last section of the debate - but it’s still easy to get a general idea of what was going on in people’s minds about the two candidates.
Going in to tonight, it was clear that expectations were high for Senator McCain because of how he’s always exceled at the town meeting style. Also, with poll numbers starting to favor Obama, he really needed a game changer. To get an idea of why, check out CNN’s interactive electoral map here.
As for general thoughts about the debate, it seems like many of those online noticed Senator McCain’s excessive use of “my friends,” as well as how he referred to Senator Obama as “that one” when talking about an energy bill. Some of the coverage I’ve been following online, including HuffPo’s live update, also picked up on how Obama has taken a much more authoritative approach to foreign policy.
In the substance areas, most of the pundits are now saying that Obama clearly won the healthcare portion of the discussion, although I didn’t get the sense that UMass students twittering picked up on that as much. Most seemed to comment on the first hour of the debate, which focused on the growing financial crisis, as well as the candidates comments about Bin Ladin and Al Queda.
I was surprised that the last question, “What don’t you know and how will you learn it” didn’t elicit more of a response from users. Although, it didn’t really seem to phase the candidates - they just gave their standard ending comments, minus a joke from Senator Obama.
Sidenote: for a while, the #umassprez2 hashtag was featured at the top of the Twitter homepage. Pretty cool.
That’s it for tonight’s debate… now for the spin!
