Instant reaction: Some of the most insipid questions ever thrown onto an official Presidential debate floor.

Both candidates did seem to seek to rise above the level of the questioning, but fell back to talking points and stump speech lines.

Sen. McCain: Blinking at a furious rate, harking back time and again to his “many, many years” in government, yet bringing out very few demonstrable successes during those years. And suggesting a post-socialist policy of having the governmnt hold your mortgage (read: be the default owner of record of the property) while simultaneously assigning a chosen and frozen valuation to the property? Oh, and trying to be a “maverick” and a “steady hand on the tiller” are mutually exclusive claims.

Sen. Obama: Too little specificity (and even less charisma), but a technocrat’s grasp of many of the issues brought up did peek through. Too timorous by half about providing solid reasoning – for example a short list of, say, 5 items – for voting for his ticket rather than just reasons for voting against the other ticket. Much better prepared on the question relating to energy policy and the follow-up.

The closer, physically, they got the further apart, politically, they also got. Reading between the lines, McCain’s Manichaean, black-and-white worldview was contrasted with Obama’s acceptance and internalization that there are a variety of shades of gray in both consideration and option.

Basic outcome: No more than minimal help for either campaign, but rather a deeper etching of the current standings into stone. As someone who suffered through Nixon’s (non-existent) “secret plan” malarkey, have no patience whatsoever and give no credibility whatsoever to McCain’s pallid, shallow drone of “I know how to” do something, which he applied too many times to too many issues, conveniently never providing any substance or policy suggestion. If he truly “knows how,” how about sharing it (and having shared it) as the wars, the economic morass, etc., etc., etc., have and continue to exist?

Too, for someone so eager to crow about voting against pork and earmarks, the vote last week for a bill that dominated the news then, stuffed with 150 billon dollars’ worth, seemed at best a disingenuous claim by McCain.

Remember the first cinematic version of Arounf The World In 80 Days? Maybe too much of a stretch, but tonight Sen. Obama was reminiscent of David Niven versus Sen. McCain as Cantinflas.

And who provided all those identical yellow cameras to the ‘ordinary folks’ in the side galleries? And what else were those folks given in exchange for or as largesse for their appearance?