Most people watch a debate hoping not merely to see our side "win," but also hoping to make mincemeat of the opposition. We want the other side to get so flustered that s/he stammers and gags and stumbles under the weight of one crushing blow after another.
For Democrats especially, the amount of pent-up frustration after seven years of enduring Bush's offenses and idiocies makes us crave nothing less than an all-out slaughter.
But I think Obama's people see things differently -- and apart from the few moments where Obama showed he could duke (and dish) it out with the best of them (as in his "the war started in 2003" segement), his campaign did not see it as their mission to stomp McCain to a pulp tonight.
Instead, they grasped that Obama has been steadily pulling upward in the polls... while McCain has been acting erratically, even desperately. And they tailored their debate strategy accordingly.
More on that after the jump...