Posted by Jed Lewison on Wed Aug 20, 2008 at 2:33 PM Pacific

The upside of McCain's Saddleback performance

Yesterday, debrazza (+4) made an astute point in the comments: the perception that John McCain was masterful at the Saddleback Church is actually a good thing for Obama.

Why? Because by outperforming expectations, McCain demonstrated that he's actually very good at debates -- crisp, clear, and concise. And some people even think he's funny.

Obama, on the other hand, has clearly got some work to do at delivering the snappy one-liners. Personally, I thought he did very well, but will concede that he wasn't nearly as memorable as McCain.

Today, Kit Seeley of the NYT Times effectively argues the same point, saying that the forum showed that John McCain can do much better in debates than Obama.

She quotes Obama press secretary Bill Burton:

The Obama campaign agreed that the expectations for Mr. McCain were low.

“John McCain has been a highly under-rated performer because of one bad speech he gave in front of the infamous green backdrop the night we secured the nomination,” Bill Burton, Mr. Obama’s spokesman, said.

“The truth is, he’s been honing his skills in Washington for the past three decades, won all of the Republican debates and has the experience of another presidential run under his belt,” he added. “We fully expect that McCain will surprise folks with both his speech at the Republican convention and his commanding performances at the coming debates.”

As for the debates -- the first one is on September 26, barely more than one month away.