I sat in on a debate watching party Friday night, and it was a raucous one. Obama and McCain were lackluster in their performances, but the people at the party in the Tasti lounge loved every minute of it.

If you didn't get a chance to see the debate or join in on the party, we have a recap for you here at Cub Pub

I went to the debate watching party in the Tasti lounge in Lerner Friday night to watch the debate and get a sense of people's reactions. There was little to infer from th group, however - most were solidly in the Obama camp, and there were few, if any, McCain backers around. Predictably, the party-goers seemed to believe that Obama came out on top.

There was hardly anything to get excited about in this debate, though. Neither of the candidates landed a knock-out blow, and they both struck a very civil, high-minded tone throughout the event. If anybody was expecting Obama to rip McCain apart, or McCain to put Obama in the rope-a-dope over foreign policy, they were seriously disappointed. While the two aired out serious differences in terms of economic and foreign policy, neither of them showed mastery for either subject.

That's not to say that there weren't entertaining moments during the debate. One only needed to witness the candidates' dueling stories about the hardships of the Iraq War to get their fill of political comedy. McCain countered Obama's call to withdraw from Iraq with a story of the mother of a soldier who died in Iraq who gave McCain a bracelet and begged him not to force the troops come to home until the war was won and done with. In a surreal moment, Obama responded that he had a bracelet of his own given to him by the mother of another dead soldier who begged Obama not to let other mothers suffer what she has gone through. Though the stories were not a laughing matter, the idea that th candidates used these stories as debate fodder was at once hilarious and depressing.

Check back soon for part two of our impressions of the first presidential debate.