Vice Presidential Semi-Smackdown

I watched the VP debate last night. It was... painful. I was bored after the first 15 minutes, and I like politics! I can't imagine the average person being willing or able to stick through it to the end. That said, I'm having a hard time deciding who won (although the whole concept of one person winning the whole thing seems weird to me - each candidate did well on some questions and poorly on others). Cheney seemed gruff, fatherly, but confident (in an evil Satan-is-on-my-side kinda way,) and performed better than my low expectations. There were times when I felt like my school principal was lecturing me for missing class or something. Edwards was disappointing, because I had expected a lot from the trial lawyer. He seemed unable to get his points across concisely- I got dizzy following his tangents, although he did make it back to the original point eventually. Unfortunately many times, by the time he got to the point, he only had 15 seconds left to answer the damn question. He also tripped over his tongue more often than I had expected.

The moderator, Gwen Ifill, sucked. Some of her questions were more ballsy than I expected, but others were either total softballs or completely bizarre. She even made a mistake in giving Edwards an additional 30 seconds that he should not have been given, and then had to cut him short to rectify the mistake. And the stupid "answer this question without saying Bush or Kerry" rule was, well, stupid.

But on balance, I don't think this will change the election much. I doubt many people made it through the whole debate - those who did probably already know who they are going to vote for next month.

Do I really have to call a winner? Fine, if I must, I declare the VP debate a draw. Perfect material for the spinners on each side to work their evil magic.