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Post-debate polling favors Obama over McCain

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-09 09:35

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- More people said they found Obama more likable than McCain during the debate, according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey.

During the second presidential debate at Belmont University, John McCain dismissively called rival Barack Obama "that one," Obama mocked McCain's "Straight Talk Express," and both left the debate stage to return to the campaign trail Wednesday.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain (L) listens as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks during the presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee October 7, 2008. [Agencies]

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CNN's national poll of debate watchers found that 54 percent said Obama did the best job, compared to 30 percent who said McCain performed better. While 51 percent of those polled said they had a favorable opinion of McCain, unchanged from before the debate started, 64 percent said they had a favorable opinion of Obama, up 4 percentage points from before the debate.

On the question of who won the debate, a CBS News/Knowledge Networks poll of uncommitted voters found a similar result. Forty percent said Obama won, 26 percent said McCain won, and 34 percent thought it was a tie.

Playing off the second debate, the Obama campaign released a TV ad Wednesday that continued the criticism that McCain's health care plan included taxing employer-based health care benefits. "Instead of fixing health care, he wants to tax it," the ad says.

McCain's campaign, in turn, put out a TV spot contending that Obama promises nearly $1 trillion in new spending in the wake of the $700 billion financial rescue plan Congress approved. "Sound crazy? the ad asks. "It is."

It took just eight minutes into Tuesday's presidential debate for Republican candidate McCain to land the first blow, blaming Obama and Democrats for the collapse of mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

"They're the ones that, with the encouragement of Sen. Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back," McCain said.

Obama responded: "I've got to correct a little bit of Sen. McCain's history, not surprisingly. ... In fact, Sen. McCain's campaign chairman's firm was a lobbyist on behalf of Fannie Mae, not me."

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis has a stake in a Washington lobbying firm that received thousands of dollars a month from Freddie Mac until recently.

Davis is one of the many figures in both campaigns and near them who have been targeted as reasons why each should not be supported. As they head back on the road Wednesday, both campaigns say those associations would again be highlighted.

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