In my imagination, Cheney's mission in this debate was to reassure the informed, intelligent Republican voter that there is someone more together than Bush on this ticket. He was well prepared with the party line that the Republican voter has been hearing on all of his preferred media, and he spoke in complete sentences. He also had to wave the experience gap card at the nervous undecideds, which I think he did. I do think he looked arrogant/bored a good bit of the time, but I think that may have played into the "look, they're making me debate this whippersnapper" message for the sympathetic demographic.
Personally, I think the man is probably too smart for some of the things he said (certainly conflating every "bad guy" into one monolithic blob of "terrorists"), but he wasn't there to show off his intelligence, he was there to advance the ticket.
All in all, I don't know if I'd call this a win for Edwards. I think Edwards did a great job, and he certainly made points *I* wanted to hear, and countered Cheney's non-truths will well-prepared rebuttals...but I'm already going to vote for Kerry/Edwards, and I'm not sure a Bush/Cheney supporter would agree with me on Edwards' success.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-10-06 07:52 am (UTC)Personally, I think the man is probably too smart for some of the things he said (certainly conflating every "bad guy" into one monolithic blob of "terrorists"), but he wasn't there to show off his intelligence, he was there to advance the ticket.
All in all, I don't know if I'd call this a win for Edwards. I think Edwards did a great job, and he certainly made points *I* wanted to hear, and countered Cheney's non-truths will well-prepared rebuttals...but I'm already going to vote for Kerry/Edwards, and I'm not sure a Bush/Cheney supporter would agree with me on Edwards' success.