The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

Vice presidential debate was tonight. It was pretty uneventful in terms of policy I thought, but I do have some observations.

First off, Gwen Eiffel was an awful moderator. She screwed up the order a couple times and gave Edwards some extra time at one point. Also some of her questions were really stupid. For example, "Why are you better, but don't mention your candidate's name?" or another "Mr. Edwards, are you qualified? Mr. Cheney what is your answer?" It really detracted from the debate when both of them at various points paused to think about what she was doing.

As for John Edwards, I'm glad that John Kerry won the nomination. Edwards style is a little too glamorous for me. I honestly prefer a more bland and monotonous approach to political rhetoric. That's why I was a big Al Gore fan and that's also why I like Kerry, though he's not dry, per se, but rather eloquent. If Edwards had won the nomination there's no doubt he'd get destroyed by Bush. His talking points weren't bad, though, and he was on point with the John Kerry plan.

I really like Dick Cheney's style. He seemed clearly underwhelmed at the prospect of a national debate and that is super badass. I also liked that he didn't feel the need to fill all of his time when it was his chance to speak. If he was done making his point, then he stopped talking, which none of the other three guys so far has done. When Eiffel asked if he wanted extra time, a couple of times he just said no. Cheney is eloquent and easy to understand at the same time, which is hard to do. I also like the fact that he clearly has no political aspirations so he doesn't pander to anyone, he just speaks his mind.

There were times when Cheney seemed to disagree with whatever it was Bush had chosen to do and he never really tried to refute that he wasn't. The gay marriage discussion, for instance. Edwards said something to the effect of, "John Kerry and I believe that a Constitutional amendment would be wrong and unnecessary and even though he hasn't said so, I suspect that Mr. Cheney feels the same." In response, Cheney only said, "I thank Mr. Edwards for his kind words about my family."

It seemed to me like Cheney didn't really do much refuting of what Edwards was saying about his and Bush's bad decisions. Instead he spent his time talking about how Kerry and Edwards would do stupid things. It might have been more effective to highlight their successes, though they have very few. He also never talked about Paul Bremer's comments and anyone paying attention saw that Edwards was essentially begging him to say something about it.

He did talk about the Medicare reform, which was a huge victory for Bush, but then he couldn't talk about much else. The No Child Left Behind is a disaster because it is poorly conceived and underfunded directly because of Bush. The only reason there is no Patient's Bill of Rights is because Bush didn't sign it. Iraq is going in the wrong direction and really had nothing to do with terrorism in the US.

Edwards, on the other hand, was too redundant. He would answer questions from two questions ago and try and refute things Cheney said and then go on to answer another question. He was a little too combative in my opinion and he had that smile on the whole time. It was a tad disconcerting.

I wouldn't say there was a clear winner or loser in this debate. I can't imagine it will have much impact on the polls. The Bush/Kerry domestic policy debate will be much more interesting. That and Gwen Eiffel won't be moderating, thank the lord.