VP Debate Analysis

Prior to this debate, I claimed that 1) neither candidate would score a huge win on merits and 2) the debate wouldn't matter. I was wrong on the first, and I hope I was wrong on the second.

Cheney, I thought (and I'm writing without having seen any of the postdebate spin or commentary), clearly won this debate. He was more authoritative, more insightful, seemed to have a better command of the issues, and even seemed somewhat personable (at least compared to his stereotype of being an ogre who eats children). Edwards seemed like, well, a pretty boy. He seemed over his head, rehearsed, essentially like Bush was last debate (except without the deer in the headlights facial expressions).

This time, I scored each round (and closing speech) out of ten. The final score was Cheney 190/220, Edwards 188/220. But this is deceptively close, since it overweights the economic part of the debate (which Edwards won) by 20 points (as it had 2 more questions). Since most Americans will overweight the foreign policy part if anything, this makes Edwards seem stronger than he was.
--------Cheney------Edwards----
----FP----
1)-------10-------------9
2)-------10-------------8
3)-------9--------------8
4)-------10-------------8
5)-------9--------------9
6)-------10-------------9
7)-------8--------------10
8)-------9--------------9
9)-------8--------------10
Sub------83/90----------77/90
----Econ---
10)------9--------------10
11)------10-------------10
12)------9--------------9
13)------8--------------9
14)------9--------------10
15)------10-------------10
16)------8--------------8
17)------9--------------9
18)------9--------------9
19)------8--------------9
20)------8--------------9
Sub------97/110---------102/110
---Close—
---------10/10----------9/10
Total---190/220--------188/220

Again, I'd say that a two point differential vastly understates how much Cheney won this debate by. Hopefully, this won't be a huge factor in the election. The only thing that did seem telling was how Cheney took the FMA off the table. He refused to stand up for it, and I think that was telling and courageous. It also will blow the religious right sky high. Aside from that, there wasn't much to say. Cheney managed to do a good a job relabeling Kerry a flipflopper (much better than Bush was). Edwards made Cheney look like the antichrist ("He voted against head start. He voted against meals on wheels. He voted against apple pie. He voted against rainbows...etc"), which doesn't help anybody. Cheney's attacks actually had relevancy to the electoral politics, and could reverberate with whoever was watching. MAYBE Edwards provided the setup for Kerry on the economic debate, but I doubt it. To go back to the grading patterns I used last time, I'd give Edwards a B- and Cheney an A-.