Overall, I think Obama is doing a great job tonight. I thought his response to the question of the opposition to the war was a grand slam.
That being said, I think that he missed a serious opportunity when he answered the question about his alleged "pledge" to public financing. To be honest, he flubbed the question. It was one of the few times tonight where he has basically dodged the question and it was blatantly obvious. Unfortunately, he missed a golden opportunity to take sledgehammer to John McCain...
We all are aware of the shenanigans regarding McCain's alleged opt-out of public financing, and Obama clearly is too as he alluded to it in his answers. But he failed to use that to his advantage.
The FCC Chairman smacked down McCain's attempt to opt-out of public financing. The games McCain is playing are well documented and now the DNC has jumped on the bandwagon, calling McCain out for "breaking the law" (which he probably did) with more pressure hopefully this will build more and more momentum.
But Obama could have, instead of just alluding to it, used it as a justification for backing out of his "pledge" (if he in fact made one). He could have argued that since John McCain is attempting to break the law, and play games with the campaign finance legislation that he authored, Obama cannot in good conscience agree to be constrained by a system that McCain helped design and whose rules he is trying to break, and that he won't let his campaign's approach to finances be dictated by one who has no regard for our campaign finance laws.
Not only would it have allowed him to avoid a possible "flip-flop," but he could have dropped the proverbial hammer in McCain's skull, and he could have created a media narrative that could have only served to create for problems for St. McCain.