Eric Steffens and Karen Brown, both from Illinois, watch the presidential debate last night at the lounge of the Hotel Providence downtown.

The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

PROVIDENCE — Joseph White watched the debate on a large screen in the posh VIP room at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar downtown. He enjoyed a Bolivar cigar, drank Johnny Walker Black, and decided he will still vote for John McCain — despite his view that McCain did not perform well enough “to make up his deficits at the polls.”

“Where he lacks the luster in his rhetoric, he makes up for it with his vision and experience,” said White, a lawyer from North Kingstown. “I think McCain continues to poke holes in Obama’s tax policy. Obama is trying to cater to a certain demographic that’s looking for a handout.”

But White acknowledged that McCain “is down in the polls because he is closely aligned with George W. Bush.” White also said McCain’s choice of vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin “hurts him.”

Watching from the same smoky vantage point was William A. Fort, a registered Republican from Seekonk. As the election nears, Fort said he’s increasingly disenchanted with McCain.

Nothing he heard during the debate persuaded him otherwise.

“He’s got no game. What’s the old saying — you can’t show up to a gunfight with a knife? He’s on shaky ground,” Fort said of McCain. “He doesn’t have a plan. He’s like the weather. He’s changing like the weather.”

Fort said McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin is “political suicide.”

“When he looks at Obama and says he’s inexperienced, and then picks someone who is inexperienced and is a heartbeat away [from the presidency] — it doesn’t show solid judgment,” said Fort. “I think that choice was made to please the masses … to steal Hillary votes” and appease “the Christian right,” he said.

At the nearby Hotel Providence, independent voter Karen Brown called it for Obama three-quarters of the way through the debate.

“This is his [McCain’s] last desperate attempt,” said Brown, a meetings manager from Illinois who is in town for a conference. “I feel like McCain is on the defensive. He’s just pointing fingers.”

Brown and Eric Steffens, both of whom work for Hewitt Associates in Chicago, rushed from dinner to the hotel lounge in time for the debate, while fellow conference-goers rushed back to their rooms.

“He doesn’t have a plan for getting out of the war. We shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” said Brown. “What I’m seeing is McCain going up there like a child: ‘Barack did this. Barack did that.’ ”

Adrian Diorio, of Bryce Organics cosmetics company, sat in the same lounge corner as Brown and Steffens.

“I wasn’t big on Obama at first,” said Diorio. “I thought people were more in awe,” rather than in support of his policies. But as he watched the debate last night, Diorio said, “The more McCain talks, the more Obama makes sense.”

Mary Herden of Barrington, who watched the debate from the hotel bar, felt otherwise.

“I am for McCain. I don’t believe in Obama. I believe he’s a socialist.”

kziner@projo.com