After a night to sleep on the VP debate....

... I still feel basically the same way. I have realized, however, that there is a useful and different perspective one might have on the matter.

I feel that Edwards lost basically because he didn't achieve a smashing victory. Chalk such an attitude up to a rich history in sports on my part.

The mirror-image opinion is that Edwards won, because Cheney didn't achieve a smashing victory (and he's supposed to be the voice of experience, yadayadayada). Or, to put it another way, Edwards exhibited just as much "gravitas" as Cheney did. Therefore Cheney lost.

Fair enough. I personally prefer my original assessment, but that's probably just because I count anything as a loss where you don't beat your opponent into a bloody, whiny pulp. But I can appreciate the validity of the opposing view given above.

At any rate, it appears that the online-poll-world has settled on Edwards being crowned the winner, and the bigwig pundits seem to be torn on the issue.

If you feel like poll-stacking, there's a wonderfully complete list of available polls at the Democratic Underground. It's a wonderful site in general, even though they've banned me (enter violins).

Update: Oh yeah. There's one more excellent reason to judge Edwards the winner, and not Cheney. Edwards wasn't a liar last night; Cheney was: 1, 2, 3. More coming.