Toldja! Obama wins the town-hall debate; CNN ought to patent that polygraph

ESPN likes to ask its talking-heads panels a question just about every day, it goes something like this: Did Dallas win the game or did Philly lose it? Endlessly entertaining because it's practically unproveable. Now, I can't prove that Barack Obama waltzed to victory in his second head-to-head with John McCain. The polls will come in soon enough and I'm pretty certain they will show a resounding win for Obama. (UPDATE: CNN's flash poll gives it to Obama 54-30.) So, people will spend all day Wednesday debating this imponderable: Did Obama win it? Or did McCain lose it?

I had a cheat sheet. As I mentioned last time, CNN had this sort of polygraph thing going at the bottom of the screen. They handed a roomful of uncommitted Ohio voters (selected by Opinion Research pollsters) these dials that they use in Hollywood to rate TV shows -- not the most scientific instruments, since they nearly kept NBC from putting "Seinfeld" on the air back in the day -- and had them turn the dials up or down based on whether they liked/hated what they were hearing at that moment.

The dials gave a definite edge to Obama in Debate No. 1, and that was reflected in later polling. He won. If anything, the advantage was even more decisive in Debate No. 2. When McCain attacks, viewers dialed him down into negative territory. When Obama attacked, viewers typically responded with mild approval. You might say it was the difference between using a hatchet and using a scalpel. (By the way, when Obama used that line again, his approval line spiked ... again.)

McCain had some spikes: When he talked about Russia. When he talked about hybrid cars. When he closed. But Obama spiked consistently and with greater strength with these uncommitted Ohio voters from the beginning to the end. There are many examples to give, but this one was stunning: a nearly two-minute flatline at the top of the approval scale when Obama talked about Iraq. This, even as Obama slipped from talking about his mother to talking about his policy to criticizing McCain. He could do no wrong.

I predicted he would do better in the town-hall debate format than many thought he would. I was surprised, however, how emphatic this win was, not only in my opinion but in the eyes of uncommitted voters.

I'll leave it to other people to talk about McCain's stage wandering, his odd tics, his interrogating of Brokaw. But I will point out that every time McCain jabbed at or outright attacked Obama, the line took a nosedive into negative territory. When Obama responded to McCain attacks, the line went back into positive territory.

The fact that Pat Buchanan is on MSNBC arguing with everything I have said here gives me greater confidence that Obama won. The fact that CNN's focus group -- the very people twiddling those dials -- were evenly divided over who won the debate gives me pause.

But what a genius idea that polygraph was. CNN gets credit for putting it on screen and extra credit for removing the Democrat and Republican voters from the chart after the first debate.

Finally, what was the deal with Tom Brokaw? "What don't you know?" "What is the McCain Doctrine?" All that was missing was the "If you were a tree" question. Tom, your time is up.