by For a debate that not many people were going to watch, many of the people I work with (including those that said they were not going to watch!) did watch. My reaction:Vice President Cheney: Cheney’s
first problem was that he didn’t really answer the first question about Bremer and Rumsfeld directly. I came away from his answer thinking he dodged it rather than facing it head on. Most of the time I could predict what he would say, though sometimes, when I thought he was going to “hit the ball out of the park” he didn’t. A prime case was with the whole homosexual marriage statement John Edwards made about
the Constitution not making one state honor a marriage in another. If that’s the case, why did they pass the DOMA anyway?
Cheney’s best moments came in listing John Kerry and John Edward’s records. Also he did well during the times where he came off sounding educated and well aware of what was going on. His best points centered around how Kerry changed with the current political breeze.
Senator John Edwards Edwards had a few stumbling points. He wanted us to come away with the idea that all Bush/Cheney does is distort the truth– I think he said that almost as many times as Bush said “hard work”. He didn’t answer many of the confrontations that Cheney had used against him. The fact
that they only thing that they’re making hay about is the comment that Cheney said that he hadn’t met Edwards until now, when there were a couple of times they were together says a lot.
Edward’s best moments were domestic. There was a time where I thought they– I mean he (since all he did was talk John Kerry this, John Kerry that) sounded like Republicans wanting to shrink the size of government. That was pretty amazing.
Overall, a more “fun” debate than the Presidential one last Thursday, but still missing things. I don’t know
how a candidate can get information out there in this world, but maybe both of them should be keeping weblogs that everyone could read and comment on– then again, what size server could hold all the comments they would get!
From a substantive point of view I believe Cheney mopped up Edwards. Also from a point of view of who “looked” most presidential I believe Cheney was better. But I think Edwards did fairly well in his in his responses and I’m sure he hit some nerves by harping on Haliburton.
I’d give the nod to Cheney as well. After hearing ‘John Kerry and I have a plan’ and ‘this administration failed’ about a thousand times, I tuned out Senator Edwards.
And when the V.P. brought out how scarce the Senator was in the Senate, that hit it home. Cheney was wrong of course in his recollection, but I think the Senate records will reflect that the current candidate rarely graces the Senate floor.