I disagree. There are several ways to see whether a debater is 'in the zone' or not. (1) The intonation when he speaks. McCain managed to speak with low voice and slowly when he made his point. 0bama's intonations showed he was frustated hence kept high pitch almost all the time. (2) Ability to inject humor while scoring points. McCain's had several succesful attempts there. (3) His control of his emotion. Several times, both in the first and second parts, it's obvious that 0bama couldn't control his emotion and tried to interupt McCain.
The final point is particularly interesting as we heard earlier today that 0bama's campaign tried to make McCain angry. What happened was the other way around.
I do not disagree with any of your points. Mac will ALWAYS score on the humor scale because he has a great sense of humor, and Obama was born without any. McCain definitely always seems a little valium-calm in the debates and to his credit will NOT be ruffled. Obama’s self-consciousness is painfully acute, and he gets hopping mad fairly quickly when he feels insulted. He can dish it out, but that’s about it.
However, from about halfway through the debate until they got onto Bahkeestahn and Georgia, Obama looked like he was on Cloud 9. You could almost see him thinking, “Look at me! I’m winning! I’m on fire!” Seriously. He was in the Zone for a fair amount of time.