As in the previous presidential debate, a group of undecided voters are gathered together in a swing state, this time they are from Colorado. To get a true gauge of their reactions and feeling about the candidates-they are polled before and after the town hall debate. This group was comprised of 50 voters, mainly former Bush supporters, but split evenly between party lines.

The voters awarded Obama the “win” (38% to 30%, with the rest choosing no clear winner). But that result was actually the least useful of the evening. Because while the earlier debate did not result in any net change in support for the two candidates, Obama walked away with a clear lead in new voters tonight. After the debate ended, 26% of the audience had become McCain supporters while 42% said they planned to vote for Obama. Only a quarter of the group was still undecided. Even more dramatic was the shift in the voters’ personal reactions to the two candidates. Before the debate, McCain had a 48/46 favorability rating; that improved to 56/36 by the end. But that’s about where Obama started the evening-54/36. After an hour and a half, Obama’s favorability numbers were 80/14. As Joe Biden would say, let me repeat that: 80% of the undecided voters had favorable views of Obama and only 14% saw him negatively for a net rating of +66. Not even Bill Clinton got such a warm response in town hall formats.

Republicans are good for throwing out the word “liberal” to see if it sticks or elicits the response they are looking for, which is negativity. That didn’t work last night, for one, Obama is hardly the most liberal Senator. He is viewed by most as a moderate. As McCain would say, look at his voting record.

Obama also improved his standing on several key attributes. Only 38% of voters thought he “has what it takes to be president” before the debate but by the end he had convinced more than half the room (56%). One of McCain’s goals for the evening was to convince viewers that Obama was a liberal who would raise their taxes and hike spending, but the number of voters who thought Obama was “too liberal” actually decreased throughout the evening. That could be because Obama used tougher foreign policy rhetoric than Americans are used to hearing from Democratic nominees. But he also got an assist from McCain, whose efforts to make him seem risky instead often position him as more hawkish than McCain. If viewers come away from the debate thinking Obama will do more to go after bin Laden and al Qaeda than McCain would, that’s probably a plus for Democrats. And it makes it harder for the “liberal” charge to stick.

One final note, at the end, when Obama and McCain were working the room with their wives-did you see Obama moved towards McCain? It looked like he was going to exchange a few words or a handshake. McCain pointed to his wife, telling Obama to shake Cindy’s hand. McCain then turned away. In my opinion, that was extremely rude-and unsportsmanlike conduct. No wonder the other Republicans do not like him, he doesn’t play well with others..