Vice Presidential Debate

Last night was the first and only vice presidential debate of the 2004 election. Too bad. I don't think there was a lot said by either candidate that hadn't already been said by their runningmates. Kudos to moderator, Gwen Ifill who did a superb job as everybody expected. I think that the roles filled by Lehrer and Ifill, show PBS to be the number one responsible news source in America. For a full transcript of the debate, you can find one at the Commission on Presidential Debates website.
The first difference was the setup of the stage. Instead of duelling podiums placed 10 paces apart, this debate took place at a table with both candidates and the moderator being seated. The sides were reversed in this debate- whereas in the Presidential debate, the President had been at stage left and the Senator at stage right, Vice President Cheney was at stage right, and Senator Edwards was at stage left. Unfortunately, this was the most interesting development for roughly the first hour of the debate. Both men were polite and well-spoken. They both took notes, and when the other was speaking, listened attentively. The only problem was that both Edwards and Cheney were repeating lines from the debate last Thursday, or even worse, in my opinion, repeating lines from their side's television ads.
The first 45 minutes were devoted to foreign policy,which to both men meant talking about Iraq, with an occasional mention of Afghanistan. It's when Ifill turned the questions to domestic policy that we finally heard some new information from both sides. I think there were three key moments- when Cheney gave out the web address in response to allegations made by Edwards about Haliburton, when the issue of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was raised, and when each candidate was asked to tell what they brought to the election without using the name of their runningmate.
After Edwards spent nearly two minutes describing how Haliburton had violated the law and received quite abit of favoritism from the administration, Cheney rebutted with of all things, a web address to a site that would prove Edwards was wrong. This really caught my attention. This was not something that I had seen the Republicans do in the past, and certainly not one of the Conservatives like Cheney. I'm guessing that Cheney had wished that he hadn't done it, with all thef all-out it has received. For starters, he gave out the wrong web address. On top of that, the organization did not say what the Vice President claimed they did.(Factcheck.org was responding to a Kerry ad about different issues with Haliburton.)
Concerning the issue of the proposed constitutional amendment, Cheney did not waver and very succinctly said that he did not favor the amendment, but it was his job to support the President. In response, Edwards expressed his respect for Cheney on this issue, and didn't waver from the fact that he and Kerry did not support gay marriages, but felt it was no business of the federal government, especially by amending the constitution, to decide this.
The final important issue came as Gwen Ifill asked Dick Cheney to describe how he mattered, if you will, without using the President's name. It was very clear that the spirit of her question was to have each candidate talk about their strengthes and the other's weaknesses. Cheney answered appropriately, but the rebuttal by John Edwards was embarassing. Edwards immediately used Kerry's name, but never talked about Cheney or himself in particular. He adopted using "we" and slipped up twice more using Kerry's name. It was hard from my vantage point to tell if Edwards intentionally didn't answer the question raised, or if he didn't understand the question raised.
I think when it came down to it in the end, Vice President Dick Cheney won the debate. Both men were eloquent and civil. Cheney just spent more time talking to the questions raised by Ifill.
This conclusion of course is not based on the fact that I personally believe many of the statements made about Iraq, escpecially with concern to ties with al Queda, are nothing but lies and half-truthes. If it were, Edwards would not even have had to show up for Cheney to lose.