Joe Solmonese, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, got his ass kicked by, of all people, Maggie Gallagher, of the National Organization of Marriage. Gallagher was better briefed on the facts that they discussed, and more assertive in pushing her points, and she mopped the floor with Solmonese.

I have a hard time imagining why anyone at all supports the ineffective and utterly useless Joe Solmonese, who’s $340K annual salary, supposedly for “top talent,” is completely going to waste with him.

HRC will never be a respected agency by the gay community until they kick out worthless and less than useless Joe Solmonese.

McCain: we’ve got to have a package of reforms, and it’s got to lead to reform prosperity, and peace in the world.

Um, what is “reform prosperity?”  I suppose one could read it like “reform, prosperity, and peace…” but he didn’t put a vocal comma in his sentence.

Meg Whitman, CEO of Ebay, for Treasury Secretary?  Ugh, didn’t she just lay off 10 percent of her workforce?

Warren Buffett, on the other hand, is like a financial force of nature: strong, stable, prudent, and not a huge risk taker.

And Brokaw, reminding people of time constraints?  Ugh, what a schoolmarm.

The debate continued on, with McCain seeming to grow older before our eyes, and Obama staying calm and collected, in command of his ideas.

I’m glad the debate stayed civil, with nothing particularly nasty coming out.  I liked Obama’s body language and voice.  They conveyed confidence and strength.  McCain seemed almost hunched over, as if he were hiding something.  At other times, you could see the anger just beneath the surface of his face.  Calling Senator Obama “that one,” though, is too reminiscent of the racist phrase “those people,” and that was a mistake that let his true colors show.

John McCain is a weak-minded, anti-semitic, racist, spoiled scion of an American military dynasty.  He’s so desparate to be the Commander-in-Chief that he’ll say or do anything – his long career of flip-flops shows that clearly, and his current “regulate them to death” mindset is just the latest flip-flop in his unremarkable, yet corrupt career.

If we really want to put Country First, we’ll vote for Change We Can Believe In and elect Barack Obama the next President of the United States of America.

It’s chilling to see Palin using the same tired phrases and ideology as Bush. Just exactly how is she different from Bush? Oh, yeah, she has a vagina…

If McCain and Palin represent anything at all, they represent more of the same failed policies of George W. Bush and the GOP Washington establishment: take from the middle class and give to the wealthy.

Well, John McCain, the American people are tired of that larceny and cronyism. Your supposed maverick status is a sham, a myth of you concocted by you for you. We have had enough.

Biden’s answers weren’t overly ponderous or rambling, for the most part they stuck to his message. He was reasonably concise, yet full of detail and knowledge. I didn’t really care for how he didn’t look at Palin enough, addressing his answers to debate moderator, Gwen Ifill, but it wasn’t that creepy avoidance that McCain did last week with Obama.

Palin looked into the camera for most of her answers, which made her look like a television anchorwoman. On the one hand, it was good that she did that, but since her answers were all largely superficial, it made her look even more empty than she already is.

And what’s with the gotchas she kept trying to fling at Obama and Biden? Obama voted against funding the troops? Egads, as Biden pointed out, so did McCain. Those sorts of attacks never go anywhere when dealing with legislators, as they always have all sorts of votes that don’t make much sense when taken out of their context.

The two went back and forth, with Biden correcting Palin every time she distorted Obama’s record, and then hitting back with something against McCain. Palin really didn’t get the same sort of traction from her attempts to do the same.

But one of the big highlights of the evening came when Biden slammed McCain on his maverick status:

Look, the maverick — let’s talk about the maverick John McCain is. And, again, I love him. He’s been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people’s lives.

He voted four out of five times for George Bush’s budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year and over $3 trillion in debt since he’s got there.

He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against — he voted including another 3.6 million children in coverage of the existing health care plan, when he voted in the United States Senate.

He’s not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college.

He’s not been a maverick on the war. He’s not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table.

Can we send — can we get Mom’s MRI? Can we send Mary back to school next semester? We can’t — we can’t make it. How are we going to heat the — heat the house this winter?

He voted against even providing for what they call LIHEAP, for assistance to people, with oil prices going through the roof in the winter.

So maverick he is not on the important, critical issues that affect people at that kitchen table.

But the absolute gem of the evening, which sent the “dial line” of the live CNN poll way up was Joe Biden talking about his family.

Look, I understand what it’s like to be a single parent. When my wife and daughter died and my two sons were gravely injured, I understand what it’s like as a parent to wonder what it’s like if your kid’s going to make it.

I understand what it’s like to sit around the kitchen table with a father who says, “I’ve got to leave, champ, because there’s no jobs here. I got to head down to Wilmington. And when we get enough money, honey, we’ll bring you down.”

I understand what it’s like. I’m much better off than almost all Americans now. I get a good salary with the United States Senate. I live in a beautiful house that’s my total investment that I have. So I — I am much better off now.

But the notion that somehow, because I’m a man, I don’t know what it’s like to raise two kids alone, I don’t know what it’s like to have a child you’re not sure is going to — is going to make it — I understand.

I understand, as well as, with all due respect, the governor or anybody else, what it’s like for those people sitting around that kitchen table. And guess what? They’re looking for help. They’re looking for help. They’re not looking for more of the same.

This moment in the debate won the debate for Biden – that deep display of paternal affection, so rarely seen these days in national politics.   I know McCain brought Palin in because he thought she was folksy and could connect, but Biden out-folked her in that simple emotional disply far beyond what she has been able to do with her exaggerated accent and upswept harried-mom hairdo.

I will give some props to Palin.  She didn’t completely embarrass herself, or make any huge mistakes.  She seemed together for the most part.

But in an election as important as this is, simply not embarrassing oneself is not nearly enough.  And since Biden won this debate, I suspect we’ll see a post-debate bounce for Obama.

I suspect that for Palin to win this, all she has to do is show some knowledge about energy policy, a subject about which she can pretend to knowledge. If she is able to make it seem like she knows about it, which frankly, she doesn’t know that much. If she can convince viewers that she is knowledgeable on that subject, then they will be more inclined to fall in line with her when she is vague and “folksy.”

Biden’s job, then, is to take the fight to her. He can’t sit back and handle her with kid gloves and let her do her vague schtick. He needs to be less senatorial and more hardscrabble. Biden has to show his knowledge without being a know-it-all.

As both come from working-class backgrounds, they are naturals at connecting with working and middle-class voters, so this debate should be fascinating on its own terms.

For Biden, he has to be funny and charming, too, even more so than normal, because everyone knows that he’s well-versed in policy issues, especially foreign policy.  He has largely already passed the “does he look presidential” test, so that’s not as much an issue for him.  But he has to figure out how to oppose Palin without appearing mean or overbearing.  But he also needs to be careful, because she’s going to use her charm to stick the knife in if she can.

The opening of the debate focused the first 25 minutes on economic policy, especially regarding the bail out of the banking industry. When pressed by moderator Lehrer on what specific programs or spending initiatives would be needed to be cut in light of the bail out package, both candidates largely dodged the question, although Obama did acknowledge that perhaps certain items of particular policy initiatives might go unfulfilled. McCain kept harping on earmarks, but Obama countered that they were relatively a small amount of federal spending.

When they moved to foreign policy, one would have thought Obama would have been trounced by McCain, but the Senator from Illinois more than held his own, and even correctly pronounced the names of the foreign leaders correctly, something McCain didn’t do. I’ll paraphrase Dale Carnegie – the sweetest sound to a man is the sound of his own name. IF you want to annoy or irritate someone, get their name wrong. More than once.

McCain tried to criticize Obama for his “naive” view that he would hold talks “without preconditions” with leaders of antagonistic countries. Obama countered that even Mccain’s own adviser, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, agreed with that view. McCain tried to deny that, but as Juan Cole pointed out, Kissinger agreed with Obama’s viewpoint, more than once.

Obama stayed cool and collected, rarely stammered, and looked directly into the camera as if looking at the American people.  McCain barely even looked at Obama, never looked into the camera, and maintained some strange body language, especially with the incessantly blinking eyes, frozen mask of anger, that manic smile a few times, and his lifted up shoulders.  He kind of creeped me out a few times.

So even though no one in particular scored a knock-out punch, and there weren’t really any good zingers or litle sound bites, Obama’s presidential demeanout and command of the issues compared to McCain’s supposedly vastly greater knowledge combined with his creepy body language, I give this debate to Obama.

And it looks like most of the polls agree with me.