I was debate watching last night with the rest of the Country and was heartened by Obama’s steadfastness, his humor and his unflinching responses to McCain’s outrageous and repeated accusations.

I watched the debate at the studios of Green 960, progressive talk radio in San Francisco, invited as a listener guest. After the debate, two of us went into the studio with veteran host Angie Coiro for an on-air discussion of the debate with callers. Joining us were California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres, and San Mateo Republican Party vice chair Deborah Wilder. It made for an interesting discussion, you can imagine.

Small plug here:

If you don’t already listen to Green 960, you are missing a great radio experience. Tune into 960 on the AM dial. Angie Coiro is “live and local” at 3 pm every day and I never miss her show. Check the website for other shows and news of the progressive community in the Bay Area. www.green960.com If you are outside the Bay Area, there are live podcasts and archives of most shows. Check it out!

Who won?

All the major networks except Fox found Obama to be the winner. McGrumpy made some points with his newfound aggressive style, but most agreed it was too little too late. Actually too much is more like it. My co listener guest Kim called it “Kitchen sink politics.” Obama never ducked the flying objects McCain kept tossing at him. He didn’t need to. McCain wore himself out to the point he was having trouble articulating, calling his running mate “a breash of freth air” at one point, but that might just be because he gets all hot and bothered thinking about her. (Did you catch the way his gaze kept sinking to her bottom when he first introduced her as his Veep pick? But maybe he was just falling asleep.)

It’s all about the Supreme Court:

For me the watershed moment was McCain’s declaration of a Culture War. No he didn’t say those words, but he did say we need a change of culture, and he was referring to the issue of choice. Saying Obama was allied with “pro-abortion extremists” because he would make an exception for the health of the woman in opposing late term abortions. (Yes, I was disappointed he opposed them, because they are always either for the health of the woman or because the fetus is so badly deformed it couldn’t survive in any meaningful way outside the womb. Hey, these are women who want to have babies. This is not a last minute change of heart or whimsy on their part, as the anti-choice crowd would have you think.)

McCain was flippant, insulting and grossly ignorant or worse, in his cavalierly dismissing the health of the woman as a consideration.

And Choice:

Make no mistake, under a McCain presidency the cause of choice would be set back if not downright overturned altogether if he gets to pick who sits on the Supreme Court. He says he would not make Roe v. Wade a litmus test, but it is clear he would. It ain’t over yet folks. Stay tuned. And if we win, the Reps are already planning a challenge based on “voter fraud,” about which they know plenty.