In a Manhattan conference room this afternoon, Senator John McCain (R.-Ariz.) conducted and lost a hastily arranged rematch of last night's Presidential debate, this time to a cardboard cutout of the Democratic Presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama (D.-Ill.).  According to CNN snap polls following this impromptu affair, McCain turned in more respectable numbers, losing by a narrow 50-45 margin to the cardboard image of the actual man who had trounced him in a debate just the night before, 58-31.  The cardboard Obama was a life-size image of the junior Senator from Illinois purchased by McCain handlers for $40 at Nick's, a Fifth Avenue souvenir shop.  Cardboard Obama depicts Barack Obama smiling and holding his glasses at his waist, and was placed behind the table at which McCain sat for the free-form, unmoderated debate.

As he did last night, McCain came out swinging.  "John McCain was a man with nothing to lose. He was courageous in taking the fight to the very idea of Senator Obama throughout the first twenty minutes," said CNN analyst Alex Castellanos. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann agreed. "While I am not an admirer of Senator McCain's debating style, despite some lapses in fluency and answers to self-posed questions which awkwardly mixed subjects, it was clear in the early going that Senator McCain was ahead of his inanimate opponent on points."  Early on, McCain used the timed intervals reserved for the camera to focus on his cardboard opponent to check his notes and prepare himself for his next question and answer, and appeared in command.

But it was to be an afternoon of surprises.  "Cardboard Obama was a more formidable opponent than expected," stated a surprised David Gregory, also on MSNBC.  "Like Barack Obama, Cardboard Obama was unflappable: while neither real Obama nor Cardboard Obama returned any of John McCain's withering criticism, by the half hour mark, both had seemed to get under McCain's skin."  Agreeing with Gregory, conservative blogger John Hinderaker of PowerLine wrote, "McCain's success at channeling the anger of Joe Sixpack played well in the early going, but even this staunch McCainiac saw him unnerved by Cardboard Obama's passivity. McCain had no one to interrupt or chortle at, and was flustered and sputtering."

Focus groups monitoring the debate were split almost evenly, but the orange line measuring female response to the candidates in real time consistently rose to its highest level during each ninety second segment in which the camera was trained on the silent Cardboard Obama. Thomas McClarnan, an undecided Ohio voter, told CNN's Soledad O'Brien:  "I really appreciated McCain's stance on taxes, and some of the parts where he wasn't yelling at the Cardboard Obama, but during the quiet parts, you know, where they weren't arguing and you've got Obama there smiling, I dunno, I just felt oddly reassured."

In the spin room afterward, McCain-Palin08 strategist Steve Schmidt crowed over the narrowness of Cardboard Obama's victory.  "After three debates, we think John McCain has turned a corner. America may have been deceived by Obama's eloquence, and by greater margins each time, in the first three Presidential debates.  But tonight, we saw the best of Senator McCain -- a man polls are telling us is now nearly as appealing to voters as a very attractive picture, by any reasonable measure, of Senator Obama.  With eighteen days to build on this momentum, the real Barack Obama had better look out."

Reached in Obama's Chicago headquarters after the ersatz debate, Obama08 campaign manager David Plouffe had a different view:  "We didn't know until it was too late that Senator McCain wanted to debate Barack again. We think that's great.  Now that we know, we'll be proposing a debate every day until the conclusion of the election, but with two live candidates. In fact, we may propose that the debate be conducted continuously until the election concludes."

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Just in from articleman:  Obama gives in to blogosphere complaints about centrist picks, replaces cabinet-in-waiting with angry bloggers, cheesy avatars and all:

http://dagblog.com/humor-satire/reacting-internet-petition-obama-replaces-cabinet-waiting-angry-progressive-bloggers-25