Thank God I have an independent mind of my own to make up my own decisions! The amount of bias in the media these days is scary.

Anyway, if you really want to declare a winner last night it might have to be Tom Brokaw. Talk about a guy who managed to annoy almost everyone watching by being the only one who was doing his job correctly! That’s got to be a tough position for someone to be in – the straight man between two candidates for Presidents. And was it just me or did Brokaw look extremely white, pale, and aged?

All in all the debate was more bore than anything else. Neither of these candidates is going to put themselves out there and make a major statement during the debates, though McCain almost did with his statement regarding the Treasury buying up all of the bad mortgage debt out there. I am not a fan of this at all – nor am I a fan of this ridiculous bailout (which has so far led to the market falling further).

The real shame of our times is that neither McCain nor Obama have what it takes to fix the economy, yet these are the two choices that we are given. Third party anyone?

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Does that make any sense?

Yet another reason why you can’t trust a damn thing you read or hear from the media these days. I had a different view of the debate altogether.

First, I think that each candidate won, but in different areas. For example, Palin was much more likable while Biden was much more of a diplomat. Palin was more down to earth while Biden was more or less the typical Washington insider. Yet Biden appeared to know more on the issues while Palin appeared to only look at the big picture stance on them. What the biased media cannot understand is how each of these stances is a win for the respective candidates.

Palin needed to appear informed on the issues in order to rally the Republican base. She did that. Biden needed to stay away from him common gaffes to energize the Obama campaign. Mission accomplished. That’s not to say that everything Senator Biden put out there was fact, because it certainly wasn’t, but he did manage to stay away from sticking his foot in his mouth.

All in all, I thought the debate was oddly reserved and yet pleasantly collegial. There were no severe barbs thrown between the two candidates as each was carefully treading historic ground. A bit too bland for my liking. Hey, did you know that nearly 70 million people watched the debate the other night? Amazing. Now the stage is set for McCain vs. Obama 2 on Tuesday night. McCain won the first debate and he needs to hit a homerun in order to move the polls in his direction.

Yet at this point with Obama up in all of the polls one has to wonder whether or not it even matters how well Senator McCain performs in the final two debates. He can knock it out of the park both nights and the media will still crown Obama the winner and the popular support will still go in his direction. Is this race still a winnable one for McCain?

I would equate the Huckabee and Romney speeches to the brilliance of Senator Hillary Clinton’s speech at the DNC. They were powerful, effective, and served their respective purposes.

The talking heads on television kept repeating that “a star was born” during Palin’s speech. One of the channels had Howard Wolfson (former leader in the Hillary Clinton campaign) who suggested that Barack Obama bring his A-game to combat the McCain-Palin ticket. In fact, Wolfson had nothing but positive words to say about Palin to the extent that it was almost awkward.

Palin’s line of the night: “Some people use change to advance their careers, others use their careers to advance change.” WOW! Talk about knocking home a grand slam! That line will probably be the best line to come out of the entire convention and possibly this entire campaign (on both sides). Amazing – absolutely gorgeous speech writing.

Now, whether you agree with that ideology or not is up to you, but I thought Governor Palin’s speech was perfect. And I’m glad that those stupid Greek columns were bashed – man, I hated those things!

But let’s not overlook Rudy and his contribution tonight. He made such a great speech that I was very concerned about anyone’s ability to follow him. He had the crowd in the palm of his hand and even his off-the-cuff comments were dead on accurate. The most memorable part of his speech had to be when he mentioned that Senator Barack Obama was a community organizer and he giggled afterwards – drawing a similar reaction from the crowd. His comment of, “What?” was the perfect accent to the crowd’s reaction.

However, I’m not very comfortable with people bashing the concept of being a community organizer. I actually DO know what a community organizer is and what they do on a daily basis and it’s a much-needed occupation in many of the downtrodden places of our nation. That said, I’ve seen and worked with a large number of community organizers in my current and previous careers and organizing communities is NOT a good foundation to build a Presidential campaign on. Granted, the Obama folks have never made this claim, but the Republicans have masterfully made his previous occupation an issue. Good move.

All in all I think the Republicans have had a great convention even though it got off to a slow start. And I can’t reiterate enough how showstopping Governor Palin was in her speech. Brilliant.