It's very hard for me to gauge this debate because to me John McCain is quite obviously a crazy, intemperate, nasty old bastard. He was sarcastic, contemptuous and patronizing. I really, really loathe him. But then, I loathe Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck too, who are also domineering, macho pricks. (On the other hand Barack said "I agree with John" about 832 times, so perhaps I'm misjudging him.)
The early consensus seems to be that they both did well but that McCain exceeded expectations so he won. Who could ever have predicted that?
Did I mention that I really, really loathe that creepy, fascistic jackass John McCain? Ugh.
Update: Whew. The early polling suggests that people think Obama won by pretty large margins. I thought so. But I don't trust myself on these things ever since George W. Bush won two elections and people compared him to Winston Churchill with a straight face. I'm relieved to see that I haven't completely lost my judgment.
The Frank Luntz and Stanley Greenberg focus groups went overwhelmingly for Obama. And a CBS poll of undecideds went for Obama 40%-22%.