Obama pulling away

It is quite heartening to see the latest polls showing Obama pulling away from McCain here in the final leg of the race. He is at 50 percent or better in three of the four major daily tracking polls while McCain’s is dwindling in the low to mid-40s.
It is like the last leg of a marathon when one of the runners suddenly breaks away and opens up a large lead right at the finish.
The so-called-liberal media has been trying very hard to convince everyone that the first presidential debate was a tie. But the polls have consistently shown that a substantial majority believes that Obama won.
I think there was no question that Obama won. He came across as being smart, knowledgable and consistent. He had a clear and logical response to every one of McCain’s attacks and his counterattacks were rarely deflected in return.
By harping on $18 billion in earmarks while ignoring the $300 billion in tax cuts for the rich that his economic plan calls for, McCain came across as disconnected and foolish on the economy.
He seemed more knowledgable on foreign policy, but even then he focused on one thing “the surge” in Iraq, as if that was the trump card and the answer to everything. The “surge” did indeed reduce violence in Iraq, but that was just a tactic towards a strategy - to give the Iraqi government “breathing room” to reconcile its differences between Sunni and Shia and Kurds - and that has ultimately failed. So as a tactic the surge worked, as a strategy it did not. McCain is hoping that most people won’t be able to distinguish the difference.
But ultimately, what should clue people in is that if the surge had really worked then we would be able to withdraw our troops now without having everything unravel and fall to pieces. Since that is not the case, it clearly has not worked as intended.