Tonight’s Saddleback Church Forum on the Presidency, at which both John McCain and Barack Obama appeared, is being called by some the opening round in the general election of 2008. If so, McCain is ahead, 1-0.

As much as I dislike resorting to sports analogies, I kept getting baseball-analogy impressions while watching the event. First, Obama – - yes, he was smooth, articulate, and all of those things. Yet I noticed that he kept affecting a posture of leaning his head to the right, and away from Pastor Warren. This gave me the impression of a batter leaning away from the pitches, afraid of the inside fastball, wary of the curve, trying to foul off enough pitches to work his way to first base with a walk. And his answers gave me the same impression – - a lot of foul balls, an occasional single, a double off the wall, but nothing hit out of the park. And more than one strike, as when he gave as his only example of working across party lines the ethics bill sponsored by McCain and Obama – - that one blew right by him, since he appears to have forgotten that he backed out on McCain on that bill in order to stay with the Democratic Party majority. Steeeee-rike!

Obama did not do badly, but there was no charisma, no excitement; nothing more than a good talker answering, more or less as expected, questions that he should have known were coming.

McCain, on the other hand, stood in at the plate and kept hitting line drives. Oh, sure, he had some fat patches, like the question about his most difficult decision; I could have answered that one for him. But he kept his head erect, he stayed alert, he looked good, and he hit line drives. Lots of singles, some doubles, and the question about sanctity of life, when is a baby entitled to the rights of a human being, he hit right out of the park. Another home run on the “flip-flop” question (offshore drilling). McCain looked like a pro, unafraid of the pitches and ready to hit.

But, having said all of that, there is an overriding reason why I believe McCain took this match: one of the problems that a significant number of voters have had with John is his age. At Saddleback, John McCain looked nothing like the picture the Democrats want to paint, i.e., the picture of a tired, confused old man; on the contrary, going with less rest and preparation time than Obama, John McCain looked vigorous and alert and on top of his game. Regardless of specific responses to specific questions, that, in my opinion, is the impression that many viewers will have taken away from this match.

McCain 1, Obama 0.