I wish the camera had panned down below the table so we could see if someone was kneeling down there squeezing Cheney’s hemorrhoids during the debate. Edwards missed some layups. He should have noted that Cheney only presides over the Senate for ceremonial functions and only comes in the Capitol to talk to Republicans. He should have been more aggressive about Haliburton’s criminal activity. But he accomplished the main objective: remind people over and over and over again that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Separate the two, and the Dems have a great chance. Cheney lied and said that he never said there was. Pretty typical that Cheney lied about lying. Even if you think Cheney won, which I don’t see how you could, it will all be forgotten at 9:00 Friday.
I call it a draw. Edwards drew a slight edge for presentation, but screwed up by mentioning John Kerry’s name during a question where he was specifically asked not to mention it. Cheney was excellent on the defense. Despite the monotone of his Wyoming accent, he artfully evaded many of Edwards’ criticisms.
The debate can be summarized in two sentences.
Edwards: “You’re misleading the public! You’ve misjudged everything while in office, especially the situation with Iraq. Misleading! Misleading! Misleading!”
Cheney: You’re wrong! Your facts are wrong. You’ve been on the wrong side of defense issues. Kerry sends mixed messages. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
John Nance Garner, VP under FDR, said the office wasn’t worth “a bucket of warm spit.” The debate itself wasn’t worth nearly as much - nothing new was revealed about either man, and I seriously doubt that any one of the undecided voters out there were swayed much one way or another.
(maybe this has been discussed… sorry )
What really bothered me was Cheney claiming that the US had only 50% of the casualties. Counting Iraqi “forces” means using those car bomb victims, those that were police, to manipulate casualty figures to a more “acceptable” 50% ! Talk about pushing the truth without breaking it and playing around with numbers. The way Iraqi police and forces are dying in Iraq Cheney might claim a 25% soon.
I wonder if Cheney is including casualties which we’ve caused in Iraq in his calculus?
As far as winners and losers, I’d have to give a slight edge to Cheney. If it was a boxing match he’d win on points. Think of Cheney as the defending title holder. It’s incumbent on Edwards to win, not draw, so even a draw goes to Cheney-Bush. Edwards didn’t land any serious blows and Cheney kept his composure better, coming across as the seasoned veteran that he is.
That said, I thought it was a pretty boring debate. No blood letting, no kittens eaten, no real telling moments. I wonder what the audience was (vs the presidential debate) and how many tuned out before it was over. I also thought they should have started with domestic issues and then moved to Foreign Affairs, just to get a different vibe going than the first debate. Finally I thought the moderator was not nearly as good as the first. The first question out of the box was so a little convoluted for a mass audience.
The word he used wasn’t actually “spit”.
Agreed those who already had their minds made up had their decisions reinforced, on both sides. The undecideds are who matter, and the only snap poll of them (CBS’s) had a firm Edwards win.
No idea here who John means by “most pundits across the news channels” unless he only means “Fox” - can you give us some names and quotes there, pal?
Edwards had to appear up to the job, making a Kerry vote seem safer to the waverers, and he certainly did.
Yep - that only underscored that the Iraq situation is not as Cheney wanted it to be believed.
I’m having a hard time with this interpretation, and you aren’t the first person to see it this way, Cervaise. Essentially, it says, yeah, Cheney lied, but he lied well, so he won the debate. First of all, I hope that most people aren’t comfortable with liars, regardless of whether they flinch when they lie. Secondly, I thought that it was very effective for Edwards to call him on it, face to face, several times. I appreciate that you saw it differently, but I certainly can’t even see how it could be seen as taking Edwards to the woodshed.
Finally, I watched the whole thing very closely. I don’t recall what Cheney had to say at all when confronted with matters of rising numbers of people in poverty and rising numbers of people without health care insurance. On jobs, he simply cited the number of jobs created in the last year, and blamed the attacks on 9/11 for the loss of one million jobs.
Edwards spoke of the issues directly pertinent to many Americans. Cheney hit the fear notes and didn’t stumble like Bush. Perhaps I am naive, but I don’t see many people being comfortable with the “good liar” take on the whole thing.
Well, I actually stayed up till 4 am to watch this one, as I’ve never seen either of these guys really say much before. I was disappointed in the first few minutes, as there were too many things which were said in the same words as the in the presidential debate … can they not rephrase issues instead of regurgitating what we’ve heard before from Kerry/Bush?
I found it frustrating , too, that both of them were always playing catch-up with their answers - neither of them seemed able just to answer the question at hand without harking back to the previous topic first. I really don’t think 2 mins./90 seconds is really enough time to answer questions on major policy topics.
There were a number of openings that Edwards could have capitalised on but didn’t - I really don’t like Cheney though - he really comes across as the evil puppet-master - and is too smug and self-satisfied for me. Would you buy a used car from that guy???
I thought the debate was summed up by their closing comments.
Edwards appealed to our hope. Cheney appealed to our fear.
We did, we did . . .
Chris Matthews for one, on MSNBC. Within minutes of the debate’s end, he was marveling over what he considered a clear Cheney win. Chuck Scarborough chimed in that Edwards had been “obliterated,” but he may not really count in this discussion. Always struck me as kinda Fox-lite.
Well, ditch it quick - it probably has a delayed action bomb hidden in it - to be detonated when they lose the election!!
I think comparing the debate to Win or Lose situation makes for a bad evaluation… we should see various “fronts”.
Experience - One good point of course is that if Cheney is so much more experienced he should have shot down Edwards pretty bad… he didn’t. Point for Edwards surviving.
Cathing Up - Kerry is behind in the polls or was… so Edwards should have gained more undecided voters to help out… and I don’t think he did much of that. Cheney didn’t get any undecided either so par for the course there… but a bit worse for catching up Kerry/Edwards.
Stereotypes - Cheney wasn’t running only against Edwards or vice versa. Cheney is fighting against the highest rejection polls of all 4 candidates. He has a stereotype to fight against… while Edwards is supposedely the least experienced. He must fight the “kid” stereotype. In both cases they both failed I think. Cheney came across as grumpy and Edwards as naive. (though I prefer naive to grumpy).
Exposure - Cheney is a known politician… he’s been around for a while. Edwards needs more air time for sure. Edwards survival and reasonably good performance means the debate is favorable to his side. People now know Edwards a bit more… Cheney too. Still Edwards needed and gained more from appearing on the debate.
Supporting the #1 - A final point is that Bush is if Bush doesn’t do to well in other debates… a great performance by Cheney would have saved him. People could have dismissed Bush’s bad performance as being a personal defect of not being a good public speaker. Cheney being strong meant a strong presidency and a strong advisor no matter what. Cheney didn’t have a great performance… so this puts on more pressure on Bush to do well in other debates.
With these criterias I would say that Cheney won by a small margin the debate (already expected)... but that the "strategic" gains are all in the Kerry team.I’ve not seen this mentioned elsewhere. In the dirty tricks department, try visiting the website to which Cheney referred people: factcheck.com.
Daniel
Unfortunately, we’re all passengers in that used car whether we wanted to be or not. It has no seat belts, air bags or baby seats … and it’s a Ford Pinto … with a Hummer tailgating.
Holy shit. I went to that url last night during the debate, just to see if it would redirect to the correct one (perhaps factcheck owns both - you never know), and that is not the page that came up. I don’t know whose strings Soros pulled to get that url that fast, but damn!
Yep! Last week, it connected to some websquatter’s Internet directory. My guess is that someone in Soros’s staff called that websquatter up and offered a few grand for the site during or just after the debate, and that in the next few hours we’ll see it develop into a more specific site.
Dainel
And by my reading at least, the real factcheck.org hammers Cheney on his performance.
There are inaccuracies on both sides, but Cheney’s far outweigh Edwards’s.
Daniel
Perhaps Cheney doesn’t remember meeting Edwards at that breakfast because they had served waffles with real blueberries and whipped cream, because damn! that would make you forget anything else that happened that day. Mmm … waffles.
Or maybe it was that good thick French Toast with strawberries and powdered sugar? Mmm … (Since it was before 9/11 it would still have been French Toast and not Freedom Toast.)
Damn, I’m hungry.
For what it’s worth, this is from http://www.electoral-vote.com/: