Colovion: But still he didn't do much of anything to keep it "on task" so to speak, they didn't even get to all of the topics that they were meant to cover. Not the end of the world, but I can see why there is criticism of his handling of it.

Right. Which was more bad planning than anything else. He had a way too aggressive agenda, and would have had to have a very heavy moderating hand, preventing much serious discussion or back-and-forth, in order to get to it. Much better to err on the side of not getting through everything on his list. I would like to think that the take-home message for the future would be to have a less-aggressive agenda and allow the banter to go on as long as it doesn't become a talking points battle. But again, since left-wingers are looking to blame the moderator and format for 0bama not winning, that probably won't happen.