This debate I decided to watch on cnn to watch their little graph of mens and womens reactions. One common theme was that when mccain tried the stuff about "surrender" and "raise taxes" and the typical negative ad stuff.. the reactions all went negative.
The format I didnt care for too much because it allowed one or the other to end with zingers knowing full well that the opponent was not able to respond. Hard to imagine them both agreeing to that format
oh well.