Obama, McCain face off in first debate

Both candidates declared victory on Saturday after Senators Barack Obama and John McCain faced off Friday night in a 90 minute debate on the economy and foreign policy.

Jim Lehrer, the moderator, announced at the top of the debate that the discussion would begin with the economy, and tried unsuccessfully to get the candidates to declare if they would vote for the financial bailout package being debated in Congress.

Obama said he wanted the economic rescue package to abide by certain principles, including limiting CEO pay, accountability and oversight, and relief for ordinary Americans. McCain said he hoped to vote for the plan but made no definitive commitment to do so.

Obama hit at McCain for telling the public that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong" in the midst of the economic crisis, but McCain said the fundamentals of the economy are the American worker, which he pledged to protect. After the debate, the Obama campaign surrogates argued that McCain never mentioned the words "middle class" in his entire performance.

Two snap polls taken after the debate showed that Obama won, and a live focus group conducted by CNN also showed Obama won the debate. A CNN poll found that 51 percent of viewers thought Obama won the debate while only 38 percent felt McCain won.

The results from a CBS poll were similar. Thirty-nine percent of "uncommitted voters" who watched the debate thought Obama was the winner, 24 percent thought McCain won and 37 percent saw it as a draw.

During the debate, McCain hit Obama for supporting earmarks for his state of Illinois and promised to cut this government "pork" if elected president. But Obama replied that earmarks only account for $18 billion in the federal budget that runs into the trillions of dollars.

McCain argued that Obama has the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate and Obama replied that his voting record mostly reflected his opposition to George Bush's "wrongheaded policies."

Senator Obama declined to accept McCain's proposal for an across-the-board spending freeze to control the budget, arguing that the Arizona senator was using "a hatchet" where he should be using a scalpel.