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[Disclosure: I live in Chicago, and have finan­cially sup­ported Obama already.]

The first note is about the orga­ni­za­tion that McCain cited at the begin­ning of his speech, Citizens Against Government Waste. The one he was using as his cita­tion for the 900-million-dollar fig­ure he was hang­ing around Obama’s neck. They’ve are a lob­by­ing orga­ni­za­tion, which has the fol­low­ing accu­sa­tions against it:

• Astroturfing for Microsoft, against the anti-trust actions in the late 90s.
• Astroturfing for Phillip-Morris, to label a pub­lic health cam­paign that was show­ing results in reduc­ing smok­ing “gov­ern­ment waste,” and for a tobacco-industry sup­ported anti-tobacco bill.
• Labelling the YMCA “gov­ern­ment waste” after tak­ing con­tri­bu­tions from pri­vate health clubs.

And per­haps most damning:

• Laundering money for Jack Abramoff

That’s who McCain was using as his source when he obliquely accused Obama of corruption.

Also worth not­ing was Obama’s descrip­tion of the prac­tice of sup­port­ing friendly dic­ta­tors the prod­uct of “a 20^th cen­tury mind­set.” A bril­liant state­ment, in no small part because Obama knows how to get your mind going in the direc­tion he wants it to go. The rest of the debate I had the recur­ring sen­sa­tion that McCain sounded like a throw­back to the late 1980s — great for ironic, trashy, brit­pop. For a U.S. President? Not so much.