Reading around in various places on the internets it seems like conventional wisdom that Obama came across poorly in the debate and conventional wisdom among many (purported) Clinton supporters that complaints about the debate itself are largely due to Obama supporters being mad that their guy got roughed up.
Personally, while it would've been impossible for either candidate to look good while Charlie and George were gang raping democracy, I don't think Obama came off particularly badly. In the first half, which was supposed to be tough on him, I thought Clinton looked pretty uncomfortable with where her campaign had taken us. She was probably better in the second half. And while the bulk of the bullshit was thrown at him, I was just annoyed at the bullshit. There are genuine nonpersonality differences between these candidates which moderators who had any idea what they were talking about could have elicited. But when Charlie Gibson is a Laffer loving wingnut whose heart bleeds for the capital gains earnings of $200,000+ earners, and Snuffleupagus is a Sean Hannity sock puppet, that's not the debate we're going to get.
