The Numbers Game, Debate Style

Friday marked the first of three Presidential debates between Barack Obama and John McCain. The first debate focused on foreign policy, although nearly have the time was spent on the nation's financial crisis.

Many of the so-called experts expected McCain to win the debate, with his supposedly superior knowledge of and experience in the realm of foreign policy. Yet most of the polls that came in show Obama winning the debate. Let's take a look at a few of those polls.

The CBS Insta poll gives Obama a wide margin over McCain, although nearly an equal amount of people called it a draw.
The CNN poll also gives Obama a pretty big victory over McCain. Interestingly enough, the CNN poll showed that men were split between Obama and McCain. But women picked Obama as the winner over McCain by approximately a 59%-41% margin.

CNN's analysts, however, graded the two candidates nearly identically - but that was to be expected. Democratic strategist Paul Begala gave Obama a B and McCain a C, while the two Republican strategists - Leslie Sanchez and Amy Holmes - gave McCain higher marks.

And the USA Today-Gallup Poll was more of the same: Obama outperformed his counterpart, taking round one of the Presidential Debates.
In practically ever poll conducted, Obama defeated McCain. So what did that translate into? An increase in the lead for Mr. Obama.
Of course, that could all change. There are still two debates to go, as well as the Vice Presidential Debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, which will take place this Thursday night. But for now, Obama seems to be in command - or at least the polls seem to think so.