WASHINGTON - NEITHER Mr Barack Obama nor Mr John McCain landed a knockout blow in their first presidential debate on late Friday, but the youthful Democrat may have just scored a point's victory by standing his own.

Each campaign trumpeted favourable reviews from the instant punditry of television talking heads as Republican McCain played his strong suit of national security and Democrat Obama hammered his theme of the economy.

US media offers cautious analysis of first McCain-Obama debate WASHINGTON - MOST leading US newspapers on Saturday offered a cautious analysis of the first US presidential debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain - stopping short of declaring any of the candidates the outright winner. But The Chicago Tribune insisted Mr McCain had the upper hand. ... more

But independent analysts said that on balance, Mr Obama may have nosed ahead by crossing the most important threshold for voters only just tuning in to the marathon campaign - looking presidential.

Indiana University political scientist Marjorie Hershey was reminded of the 1980 election between an enfeebled Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, and his less experienced Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan.

'A lot of Americans in 1980 were very tired of the Carter administration but did not know Mr Ronald Reagan well enough to feel confident that he could take over as president,' she told the wires.

'By his debate performance, a lot of viewers apparently felt persuaded that Mr Reagan was sufficiently presidential that he could function at that level.'

'My suspicion is that that may have happened tonight with a lot of people who are sick of the (President George W.) Bush administration but were just not sure about Obama's credentials.'

Commentators said Mr Obama, 47, held his own on national security against his more experienced rival Mr McCain, 72, and scored with repeated upper-cuts that portrayed the Iraq war as the defining failure of Republican foreign policy.

Mr McCain in turn parried with reminders of his younger Democratic challenger's novelty on the national scene, at one point attacking Mr Obama's 'naivete' and insisting he himself did not need 'on-the-job training.'

But Mr Obama, again and again, tapped into deep-seated unhappiness with Mr Bush's record to make Mr McCain look guilty by association.

The Wall Street crisis was the 'final verdict on eight years of failed economic policies' and through the Iraq invasion, Mr Bush and Mr McCain had let Al-Qaeda renew its dangerous tentacles in Afghanistan, the Democrat said.

Circumstances favoured Mr Obama as the financial hurricane overshadowed the debate run-up - and Mr McCain's involvement in the event at the University of Mississippi remained in doubt just hours beforehand.

While the debate was meant to be focused on foreign policy, the opening exchanges were all related to the economic crisis and round-the-clock negotiations in Congress on a huge bailout package.

The tale of the tape in an instant telephone poll by CNN and Opinion Research scored a decisive win for Mr Obama among 524 debate watchers.

Asked who did the better job, 51 per cent said Mr Obama and 38 per cent said Mr McCain.

The Democrat had a yawning lead of 58-37 per cent on handling the economy, and a narrower edge of 52-47 per cent on the Iraq war, the pollsters said.

Another snap poll by CBS News and Knowledge Networks of about 500 uncommitted voters had 39 per cent saying Mr Obama was the winner against 24 per cent for Mr McCain. A total of 37 per cent said it was a draw.

'At the beginning, on the economy, Mr Obama seemed a lot stronger and more focused in terms of tying Mr McCain to Mr Bush,' Dartmouth College professor of government Linda Fowler said.

'To some extent people's perceptions will be shaped by which half of the debate they paid more attention to, although Mr McCain came away still with national security as his strong suit,' she said.

'Mr Obama did a pretty good job of making the claim that Mr McCain and the Bush administration were so obsessed by Iraq that they missed the big picture.

'But at the same time Mr McCain's closing remarks about being ready to lead were simple, from the heart, and quite effective.'

Professor Michael Traugott, an expert in communication studies at the University of Michigan's Centre for Political Studies, said: 'If people were looking for a knockout punch in this debate, it wasn't delivered.

'But since foreign policy was meant to be Mr McCain's area of strength, it was important for Mr Barack Obama to show that he had competence and a command of the facts in the main issues for American policy around the world,' he said.

'He passed that threshold test.' -- AFP

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