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After some brief uncertainty, the first presidential and the first vice presidential debate happened. And they didn’t give us much we didn’t already know.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed watching them, but the presidential debate didn’t include anything that will convert too many people.

There was more punch last Thursday, at least. Both candidates took not-so-subtle shots at each other and their running mates.

Sarah Palin would claim that Joe Biden and Barack Obama had disagreed on a key vote, and Biden would point out how John McCain had sided with Obama on that issue. Biden would point out how one of Palin’s social policies in Alaska did not conform to the GOP line, and she would… She would… Well, she reminded us how John McCain is a maverick. A lot. A maverick who happens to have the support of the leadership of a major political party.

The presidential candidates gave us the standard stuff. McCain thinks Obama is naïve and inexperienced. Obama thinks McCain’s been part of “the problem” the whole time.

I was impressed by how on-point Obama was. He avoided the usual “Change and hope for America and kittens and such” that he’s known for.

I enjoy the passion exuded by Obama in his speeches, but I was still a little worried that his arguments during the debate would be dominated by his usual rhetoric. I was relieved to see that that was not the case.

That may be both the high mark and the low with the first debate. Both candidates knew how to answer moderator Jim Lehrer’s questions, occasionally in a pointed way, but rarely did they actually go after each other.

McCain had some inaccurate statements about Obama’s foreign policy plans, and he was chided for that, but there was little else. Lehrer tried to get the candidates to address each other, but they only did when prompted. I am inclined to agree with a friend who opined to me later that the debate lacked any “big shocking revelations.”

What interested me were the graphs at the bottom of the screen during CNN’s broadcasts. Before either debate, anchor Soledad O’Brien introduced the audience to a focus group in Ohio, made up evenly of Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Throughout the debates, meters would be used to gauge how they felt about the candidates’ responses. Each group had a line. Naturally, Democrats were blue, Republicans were red, and Independents were some sort of sickly greenish yellow that just can’t exist in nature. During the vice presidential debate, the graphs measured the interest levels of male and female voters.

The two things that stuck out to me were how the Independents in the initial focus group seemed to consistently agree with the Democrats about the candidates and how there were some big drop-offs when McCain would start speaking. This included all three groups, though the red line would tend to spring back up quickly.

I’m hoping the main two are just biding their time, waiting to unleash something spectacular in the next few weeks. Maybe in the last two debates they’ll take cues from their running mates and show a little passion.

— Cohen is a Topeka senior in political science.

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