Many diaries and posters are commenting like the forum with Rick Warren was like the Debates or some kind of Win or Lose situation.
It was not.
The purpose of the Forum was to have evangies see both candidates up close and answer some of the questions that were upper most in their minds.
That is all it was.
There were no winners or losers.
I think many here are somewhat apt to panic over small things and build them up. As such they can set off alot of misconceptions and panic others.
Rick Warren is one of the new era preachers who is not interested in parties and wedge issues. But, he is one of the most powerful voices in the religious community, on par with was Billy Graham must have been back in his day.
Warren desires to change the thinking of many evangies from hot button, group think and wedge issue voters into more thoughtful ones who don't vote for just a party. He also is trying to focus these people's thinking onto the more important topics of Global warming and helping the poor and away from Abortion and Same Sex marriage.
The forum last night was to introduce the candidates to this community. And like it or not, they are a powerful and large block of voters. So, he is trying to make the evangies think and not be sheeple. That was his purpose for the forum last night. To have them listen to both sides.
As such, there were no winners or losers. That was not the purpose and that was not the take away from this forum. Warren wanted it to be forum more focused on issues because our media is doing such a lousy job this election with informing the voters on what they want to know about and instead the media on the whole are focusing only on polls, the horse race and ginned up controversy.
The ones that matter with a forum that is not about who won or lost is the impression from the people. Not the pundits who have their own agendas. They are trying to pre-write the election in the way they want it go.
I listened right afterwards to Cspan. The call-ins were far more important and informative then the pundits with their agenda and talking points.
Most of the people who called in were independents.
Aside from 3 calls the rest felt about the same way. They felt McCain was canned and scripted. They did not feel he was speaking to them or from his heart. They felt he was just going through the talking points drilled into him by his handlers. And was catering the crowd. They were also upset over his focus on war.
Most of the callers loved Obama's performance. They felt he was genuine and authentic. They felt he spoke from his heart and that he was having a conversation with Warren rather then spitting out pre-written talking points by his handlers. They felt Obama was more open and thoughtful. Very real.