Two Indistinguishable Candidates

I was surprised to see the headline, "Obama and McCain Display Stark Contrasts" on the website of the New York Times today. After watching most of the debate, I disagree with that statement.
McCain and Obama frequently agreed with the other's perspective before explaining how he would approach the topic at hand differently. (Obama appeared to do this more than McCain, but I didn't keep a count)
The Times headline probably reflects a view that a candidate with different approach to a problem– is different than his opponent.
Yet while each candidate used the expression "fundamentally different," they are fundamentally the same because they agree on the issues themselves.
If two generals in an army disagree on a target during war, they still agree on the war itself.

Admittedly, Obama did try to explain how he was different because he opposed the Iraq invasion and Bush's tax cuts, but did not significantly distinguish himself in matters of foreign policy (he said Russia's rise is bad) and economics (more ethics and responsibility are needed).
This type of debate will benefit McCain most because if he appears similar to Obama, voters could go with the candidate that has more experience.

If a winner could come out of the debate (if that is the purpose of debate), then McCain came out as the more seasoned politician, as his answers were more polished than Obama, who seems to still be formulating his arguments. Maybe this is from internal conflict in the Obama camp or from the senator's lack of experience on complicated matters where there is no obvious course.
If Obama truly does have different opinions, however, his strategy could be that he's holding his cards until later in the campaign to prevent Republicans from coming up with attack material. This could backlash if he waits too long. Republicans are well-organized in campaigns, and could deliver blows to Obama before he has time to recover. The democrats would do well to present compelling and distinguishable arguments and prepare answers to an expected Republican response.

On another note: Jim Lehrer was a distinguished gentleman in the debate as usual, but his reasks were meandering and he didn't hold the debaters to task on directly answering his questions