In this election cycle, the conventional wisdom about the presidential debates is that they have been forgettable, poorly moderated, and gave us little new insight into the candidates. After last night's third and final debate, NBC's Tom Brokaw commented, "It seems unlikely that anything we heard tonight really did move the needle." Many pundits have suggested that the debates have been an irrelevant sideshow that has not told us much about the candidates. I beg to differ.

Regardless of the format, or quality of the moderator, debates always serve as a kind of trial by ordeal, an inkblot test for the candidates to reveal who they really are. In this regard, the three presidential debates were a tremendous success. When people criticize the debates, what they usually mean is that this or that debate didn't meet modern standards of entertainment; it didn't divert us in the manner of CSI, Dancing with the Stars, or for that matter, WWE wrestling. Such critiques miss the point. I would submit that along with the economic crisis, historians will look back on the debates as the most decisive factor in the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.

The question going into the first debate in Oxford, Mississippi was, would Obama show the maturity and command that we look for in a president? Would McCain show the grace under pressure and independence from George W. Bush necessary to right the wrongs of the past eight years? I've said it before and I'll say it again: Barring any gross factual or rhetorical flubs--like Gerald Ford liberating Poland in 1976, or Bob Dole complaining about "Democrat wars"--style, or more accurately put, character, trumps substance every time.

And during the debates, character was revealed in spades. From the first debate to the last night's final one--ably guided by Bob Schieffer of CBS--there was utter thematic consistency: Barack Obama was even and reassuring, John McCain was seething, angry, and yes, erratic. There have long been whispers from McCain's fellow senators about his temper, his tendency to lose control, diss, and berate his colleagues. Before the debates, however, it was easy to dismiss such charges as hype and political jockeying. But the John McCain who couldn't bring himself to look at Obama in the first debate (something he categorically denied when asked about it by George Stephanopoulos afterward), the John McCain who contemptuously referred to Obama as "that one" in the second debate, and the John McCain we saw last night, were all of a piece. This is a man whose emotions are barely in check, who at times looked like he wanted to take a swing at Obama rather than engage him in debate.

McCain was not helped last night by the abundant use of split screen, repeatedly showing McCain while Obama was talking. The television audience was treated to a succession of blinks, eye rolls, flushed faces, and looks of pique from McCain that did nothing to comfort the viewer about his self-control. He looked like the principal of a high school in one of those teen movies who had been challenged by one of his know-it-all students, and was now caught between his desire to maintain his dignity and his desire to strangle the student.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the flash polls showed Obama winning the debate by upwards of 60-30. The situation set up perfectly for him. Obama is far more comfortable as the counter-puncher than as the aggressor. While some pundits judged him as too passive last night, what Obama did was employ a classic rope-a-dope technique: Allow your opponent to keep punching until he becomes increasingly tired, frustrated, and reckless. By the time McCain launched into his pre-scripted speech about William Ayres, millions of viewers, fresh off the latest stock market 700 point downer, were asking, "What's this got to do with the price of tea in China?"

It is ironic that John McCain experienced the same frustration with Obama as did Hillary Clinton during the primaries. Just as Hillary complained repeatedly about Obama being "just speeches," I knew that McCain had lost it last night when he started referring derisively to Obama's "eloquence." And when McCain groused about Obama's "eloquence" just after Obama had stood up for the right of a woman to have a late-term abortion if her health were imperiled, McCain seemed particularly churlish.

The bottom line is that it is now Obama's race to lose. CNN has him ahead by a staggering 10 points in Virginia, a state where Bush defeated Kerry by 9 points. Obama is ahead by 4 points in Colorado, which hasn't gone Democratic in 16 years. And the Democrats are poised to get some sweet revenge in Florida where Obama has opened up a 5 point lead on McCain. And all of this is partly due to what the three debates revealed: Barack Obama is one of the most reasoned, steady, and disciplined candidates in our lifetime.