McCain did "fail in" (heh-heh) convincing undecideds!

While McCain was claiming that he had "suspended" his campaign, and that his participation in saving the economy was more important so he would forgo the debate, he was preparing an ad claiming debate victory. Rather like the child coming home bruised, bleeding and battered from the playground fight telling his dad that he had pounded the dickens out of the other guy's fists with his face.

Did McCain win. Here from electoralvote.com

Polling data suggests otherwise. (And it is important to remember that in every McCain/Obama poll that Obama starts with 6% deficit to overcome due to incipient racism.)

"A CBS poll using random sampling showed 39% saw Obama as the winner and 24% see McCain as the winner. An Inside Advantage poll reported a virtual tie, with 42% saying Obama won and 41% saying McCain won. An Opinion Research poll done for CNN gave Obama the win, 51% to 38%, with men splitting evenly and women going for Obama 2 to 1. However, the sample had a slight Democratic bias.

A poll on CNN's Website with 80,500 respondents gave Obama the victory 67% to 28%. An NBC survey, which drew 291,000 responses gave the victory to Obama 51% to 35%. Democracy Corps ran a 45-person focus group in St. Louis. The group was heavily tilted towards the Republicans, with 33% identifying as Republicans, 27% identifying as Democrats, and the rest independents. The group as a whole voted for Bush over Kerry by a 2-to-1 margin in 2004. Nevertheless, by a 38% to 27% margin, they felt that Obama won the debate.

All in all, Obama did what he had to do. He convinced a majority of the voters that he can handle foreign affairs at least as well as McCain, maybe better. All he really needed was a tie, because virtually every poll has shown that large majorities support Obama on domestic issues."

MediaCurves which includes cell phone and web-based polling techniques gives the "independents" to Obama by 61% over McCain's 39% overall. Their 2008 Debate Results site shows the breakout of various categories such as; Iraq, The Economy, National Defense and so forth.