Not for a second did I believe that today’s debate would be called off. (For that matter, I never thought that McCain’s campaign was suspended.)

So I have just one wish for my favorite Democratic nominee ever. As we say when we step up to the golf tee, “Grip it and rip it!”

Obama has, I believe, crossed the “is presidential” threshold. People know he’s smart and that he has general mastery of issues. He is a great public speaker, and has motivated millions of citizens to engage in presidential politics. But for whatever reason he has a tendency to drop his engaging and often humorous personality when he’s in a debate.

He has a habit of answering questions as though he must answer very precisely and in depth, as though he is answering a complicated legal question posed by his favorite law school professor. Lord knows that I would welcome a studeous president, but the audience of the debate is not the moderator. Style matters. It’s an important part of being persuasive.

So I hope that candidate Obama will be more like his stump speech or late night talk show self, not his carefully parsed self. We’ll see!