Glenn isn’t in the mood to make a judgment, and I don’t blame him. Jeff Jarvis says Edwards won. Mickey says it’s a draw. Polipundit says Bush won big. Drezner kinda cops out on his own view but says most people will think Cheney won. All the online polls show a huge Edwards win – but they might be hijacked.
THE BALANCE SHIFTS: More and more readers are coming to my defense. Here are a couple of emails:
I certainly don’t think that Cheney looked like road-kill (at least not until the end when he seemed too tired to get out of his chair), and Cheney had some zingers, but I thought Edwards completely held his own. I don’t know, maybe part of it is not believing many of the patent untruths that Cheney was stating believing that the audience would just take everything he said at face value, but I’ve now seen many people say Cheney won demonstratively (including, shockingly enough to me, the entire Hardball crew) and I just don’t see it.
Yes, I’m a Kerry-Edwards supporter, but I’ll give Cheney his due. But that big moment of Cheney’s when he started hammering Edwards about his Senate record, that wasn’t in response to anything except for the fact that Edwards had gotten Cheney riled and angry. Who knows what the question even was at that point, but Cheney left the subject completely to simply talk about Edwards record. He didn’t demonstrate physically the discomfort that Bush had last week, but you could see it at some point.
I’m as baffled as you are, because Cheney by the end looked sick and tired. Edwards started getting weak at the end, and maybe that’s why people are bothered. But I just watched Chris Matthews talk about how Edwards looked like he just kept getting face-slapped and I didn’t see that at all. I’m just baffled.
Don’t be baffled. You’re right. Here’s another:
I’m with you 100% on this, and I think most average americans feel the same way. Cheney looked like a cadaver, mumbled, and did a poor job of defending his positions. If you didn’t already loathe the Kerry/Edwards ticket (disclaimer: I’m an unenthusiastic Democrat), the punches he landed wouldn’t stick. Edwards was clear, conversational, and spoke about the issues with such clarity that I wish he had a longer resume so we could be voting for him instead.
That was my impression.
The Dish 