Debate Recap

I intended to watch them this time. Really. But with my head aching too much to focus on anything clearly, I snuggled up with a book in front of the fireplace instead. I know that makes me a bad, bad poli-blogger, but hey, I never claimed to be more than mediocre anyway. The roundup from the web this morning looks like it was a lot closer than last week, but the consensus seems to be that Edwards held his own. A transcript of the debate is here for anyone else who missed it.



Matt Yglesias thought it was a draw:

"So insofar as you're scoring this like a boxing match -- round one, round two, round three, etc. -- you come down with a clear win for Edwards. But "draw" is also a plausible description of the dynamics, since they basically fought to a standstill at the emotional high-point of the contest."

but points out that

"during the discussion of domestic policy, which went on for quite some time, Edwards positively owned Cheney."

.

Instapundit didn't catch it either, but provides numerous links indicating Cheney did well.



After predicting Cheney would crush Edwards, Andrew Sullivan feels otherwise now:

"Boy was I ever wrong. If last Thursday night's debate was an assisted suicide for president Bush, this debate - just concluded - was a car wreck. And Cheney was road-kill. There were times when it was so overwhelming a debate victory for Edwards that I had to look away."

Hugh Hewitt sums it up this way:

"A Cheney win, but no disaster for Edwards, though perhaps for Kerry. Cheney wins because of the "global test" exchange and the repeated blows at Kerry's record --not Edwards-- and Cheney's nailing Edwards on the refusal to count Iraqi casualties. Key thing is that Kerry's record is back on the table. Cheney is very hard hitting on the reality of the war --one weapon in one city-- and a strong defense of Bush as Commander-in-Chief.

His commentary and another question-by-question scorecard with nifty graphics are here.



Last week, PoliPundit's eerily accurate 5-minute review called it on the nose with Kerry as the winner. This week he felt Cheney pulled it out:

Almost two years ago, I first described John Edwards as a “wildly gesticulating, empty-headed, pretty-boy trial lawyer.” Edwards is doing his best to convey that impression tonight. His excessive blinking alone is enough to make him seem unserious. Cheney, by contrast, has the cliched “gravitas.” His dull tone is an excellent counterpoint to Edwards’ light-weightness. Edwards unfortunately has to play the role of attack dog and, thus, is doing exactly what the Bush campaign wants him to do - be a pessimist. This makes Dick Cheney look cheerful! Cheney wins this debate.

Mark Kleinman provides some of the best blow-by-blow commentary I've seen. It reads kinda like ESPN sportscast banter, only way more intelligent. He puts it at a tie:

"No idea how this will play. Substantively, Cheney put in a more creditable performance than Bush did, Edwards did about as well on substance as Kerry did. In terms of demeanor, "Breck v. Shreck" was about right, and I have no feel for who came across better. I think Edwards did the knifing-with-a-smile job pretty well, while Cheney came across nastier but scored fewer hits."

Talk Left indicates that an MSNBC poll put the debate in Edward's corner 71% to 29%, and CBS also came down for Edwards. On the other hand, an ABC poll calls it for Cheney by a margin of 43 to 35 percent, with 19 percent calling it a tie.



Talkleft also provides a fun bit of fodder for the Kerry blogs to play with: photos of Cheney and Edwards at Elizabeth Dole's swearing-in ceremony in 2003.



Talk Left also provided links to John Kerry's weblog, which has photos of the two attending the 2001 National Prayer Breakfast together, and quotes Cheney as saying:

"Thank you. Thank you very much. Congressman Watts, Senator Edwards, friends from across America and distinguished visitors to our country from all over the world, Lynne and I honored to be with you all this morning.” [FDCH Political Transcripts, Cheney Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, 2/1/01].

Apparently, Cheney was stretching the truth a tad when he said he'd never met Edwards before this debate.



It had been a palpable hit, as Matt describes:

"Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you "Senator Gone." You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.



Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session.



The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.



Sharon and I looked each other.



"Ouch," said Sharon."

Well, maybe not so ouch. This one looks like it turned around and bit Cheney, though it will take a few days of play to see how badly.



Of course, during the course of the debate both sides rather enjoyed making saltwater taffy out of the truth. Check out the New York Times fact-checking article here. (Registration required, put randommentality for the user name and password for the password. I'm curious as to why the article provides hyperlinks for both Edwards and Kerry, but none for Cheney or Bush? The Washington Post also provides this fact-checking article (Registration also required, sorry):

Early in the debate, Cheney snapped at Edwards, "The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11." But in numerous interviews, Cheney has skated close to the line in ways that may have certainly left that impression on viewers, usually when he cited the possibility that Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, met with an Iraqi official -- even after that theory was largely discredited. . . .



Both candidates promised to cut the deficit in half in four years. Independent budget experts say neither the Republican nor the Democratic ticket can make good on that promise unless it scales back funding promises made during the campaign. . . .



Edwards asserted that "in the last four years, 1.6 million private-sector jobs have been lost." The actual number is close to 900,000 and will likely shrink further when Friday's jobs reports is released, though Bush is the first president in 72 years to preside over an overall job loss. . . .

Etc., Etc., Etc.



I wonder how many people bother to look up the facts behind this stuff? How many actually believe what the politicians say without question? How many really don't give a d*mn because absent an assassination, neither of these two people are going to have any functional say in government for the next four years no matter who wins?



An interesting bit of trivia: Cheney even mentioned Factcheck.org in the debate, though he called it Factcheck.com. If you haven't bookmarked Factcheck yet, I'd suggest it. The misstatements are bound to multiply as election day nears. An excerpt from today:

"Cheney wrongly implied that FactCheck had defended his tenure as CEO of Halliburton Co., and the vice president even got our name wrong. Edwards falsely claimed the administration "lobbied the Congress" to cut the combat pay of troops in Iraq, something the White House never supported, and he used misleading numbers about jobs."

Here at home, Jeff from Tusk and Talon feels it was close, but Cheney took the win:

"The exchange also seemed a little bit like a discussion in a college classroom, where a student makes an uninformed statement concerning a subject the professor has spent years studying. A little chastened, but a little resentful, after being corrected by the professor, the student will sometimes try to make one more run at getting that same uninformed position past the professor by phrasing it in a different way, perhaps using some phrase or keyword that the professor used while correcting him. The professor unphased because he's had some kid do this every sememster for the past ten years just comes back with a curt response that the kid still doesn't get it and to come back after they've actually learned something."

Matt calls it for Edwards, but agrees it was close:

"Edwards really nailed Cheney on the Halliburton stuff. Nailed him on the lost jobs. Nailed him on prescription drugs. The problem for the Dems was Cheney didn't come off as a jerk the way Bush did. Cheney sounded really good at times. And, at times, Edwards sounded like an angry yapping dog. Still, as the debate wore on, Cheney lost ground. Edwards stuck to his message and I think he ended up looking pretty good. I do wish he hadn't used an emotional personal anecdote in his closing statement. Cheney's closing was simple, straightforward, and, if I didn't know better (and trust me, I do), I'd have believed that Bush and he could do the job. I don't think the debate hurt Kerry's chances at all. And it might have helped him. So that's good."

The Press-Citizen agrees it was a mixed reaction. But then they run yet another incredibly odd article from Jane Yoder-Short:

"It's the time of the year that I'm as tired of political rhetoric as I am of picking garden tomatoes. The first tomatoes are so sweet and tasty. Unlike the first tomatoes, these later ones have less flavor, and there is little excitement in their ripening. I leave plenty to rot in the garden. . . .

Cookies may tell us as much about a candidate as some of the name-calling political rhetoric we have been hearing. Does the candidate whose wife bakes the best cookies have more understanding for people going hungry? We could hope. . . .

This week, my daughter is selling pizzas and wrapping paper to raise money for her school. As a nation, we have billions to buy bombs but only a few dollars for education. Where is the candidate willing to spend less on bombs and more on education? . . . .

I will listen to the debates hoping for more than overripe political rhetoric and flavorless cliches. If nothing comes of the debates there is always the cookie tasting test, but I'm hoping for more."

A helpful hint: don't write or grocery shop when hungry. You end up tossing in a lot of stuff that looked tasty at the time, but was really just extraneous garbage.



Okay, it's lunchtime, but I'm just saying. . .



UPDATE:

Professor Heller from the Yin Blog puts in his opinion on the split polls:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we far more interested in what undecided voters are going to do than Republican (or Democrat) ones? Unless we believe the debates are going to lead Republicans to vote Democrat or vice-versa, this election is going to turn on what the undecideds are going to do. So if Edwards won the debate in the eyes of the undecideds (and how much we can generalize from the poll is unclear), didn't he actually win the debate?

State 29 agrees with the NY Post:

If Edwards acted like a lawyer, Cheney acted like a judge. The Democrat proposed, but the vice president disposed. There was no doubt as to who was in charge.