A valuable debate.

Byline: The Register-Guard

No knockout blows, no fatal gaffes - both John McCain and Barack Obama emerged from their first debate Friday night in a stronger position than before. The audience watches these high-wire acts to see whether one of the candidates will fall. Neither did, which in itself provides reassurance.

McCain came to Oxford, Miss., after having sought to delay the first debate until after an agreement had been reached in Washington, D.C., on a plan to resolve the crisis in the nation's financial system. That crisis consumed the first half of a debate that was supposed to be on matters of foreign policy, an area in which McCain was thought to have an advantage. McCain needed to separate himself from the political culture that created the financial crisis - a difficult task for a four-term senator whose Republican Party has held the White House for the past eight years.

McCain addressed this challenge by presenting himself as a long-time critic of wasteful federal spending who had often placed himself in opposition to his party and the Bush administration. McCain deflected Obama's attempts to put him on the defensive, and instead portrayed the Illinois senator as a sponsor of budgetary earmarks, a proponent of higher taxes and a big spender.

Obama had a different challenge. While his oratorical skill is admired, the Democratic primaries led him to be regarded as a lackluster debater. His preparations for Friday's debate clearly paid off. Obama succeeded in discussing the financial crisis in terms that allowed him to describe his domestic priorities, while characterizing McCain as a fully paid subscriber to the ideology that led to the financial crisis.

Obama also had more to prove in the area of foreign policy. It was no accident that McCain's most-repeated phrase was that Obama "doesn't understand" - the Republican wanted to be perceived as the man of experience in contrast to the greenhorn. McCain's message of experience came through, but Obama proved fully capable of defending his positions and articulating a coherent vision of foreign policy issues. Obama was particularly effective in casting his position on Iraq in a larger context of foreign affairs and domestic priorities.

What the candidates say often matters less than how they say it. McCain was the tougher of the two, leaving Obama to spend much of his time explaining his positions. Yet McCain did not come off as bullying, and Obama's explanations were forceful and direct. McCain was more adept at using the power of emotional arguments, but did not cross over into an exploitation of sentimentality; Obama excelled at drawing connections and clarifying nuances, but did not lecture.

Both candidates stuck to their playbooks. Both survived. Both left viewers looking forward to the next encounter.