Neither candidate lost, but did one of them ‘win’?

America saw the first real, refreshingly candid, civil and thoughtful discussion of morality and leadership in the Saddleback forum last night with Pastor Rick Warren asking the questions in a non-partisan atmosphere. Finally.

Sunday morning news shows and print media are filled with analyses on how it went and what it told us. Both candidates did very well and received polite, sometimes rousing, applause from the audience at the event. But of course, the question is always “who won?”

Some say McCain scored big points with evangelicals, a part of what might have been considered his base before but a group that’s been reluctant to back him.

Pundits have long said he can’t win without them and now it seems that U.S. Republican presidential contender John McCain may finally be wooing his party’s evangelical base…McCain, an Arizona senator and war hero, hit the right political buttons before a nationally televised audience and thousands at Warren’s massive Saddleback Church, stressing the emphatic opposition to abortion rights that is his trump card with social conservatives.

Religious conservatives said the performance gave him a lift at a time when polls also show him gaining ground with the Republican base…

“It gives McCain a bounce. Most social conservatives want to know that he has a faith in God, but what they are looking for is where that leads him to stand on the issues,” Perkins, a leading figure in the “Religious Right,” told Reuters.

Byron York has this take at NRO.

Obama can be remarkably polished in this sort of situation. Unlike other Democrats, he’s not afraid to hang out with evangelicals. McCain, on the other hand, can at times be cranky and take pleasure in irritating his base. Could he come out ahead in this one?

Team McCain needn’t have worried. This was not your usual political TV show. Warren — Pastor Rick, around here — asked big questions, about big subjects; he wasn’t concerned about what appeared on the front page of that morning’s Washington Post. And his simple, direct, big questions brought out something we don’t usually see in a presidential face-off; in this forum, as opposed to a read-the-prompter speech, or even a debate focused on the issues of the moment, the candidates were forced to call on everything they had — the things they have done and learned throughout their lives. And the fact is, John McCain has lived a much bigger life than Barack Obama. That’s not a slam at Obama; McCain has lived a much bigger life than most people. But it still made Obama look small in comparison. McCain was the clear winner of the night.

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