Interest (OR Behind the numbers)

You may have heard that there was a Vice Presidential debate on Thursday.

What you may not have heard is that more people watched it than have ever watched a VP Debate.

I’m going to be optimistic for a moment and believe that so many people watched because there is unheard of interest in this election…  partly because President Bush is the most disliked president in recent memory, and partly because Sen. Obama is generating almost unheard of enthusiasm.

Now then, the bonus here is that a majority of viewers believed that Sen. Biden “won” the debate (whatever that means). In short, Sen. Biden had an opportunity to reach, at one time, more than any VP candidate ever, and he made a more favorable impression that Gov. Palin.

On the heels of the first Presidential debate, where Sen. Obama “won” by similar margins (albeit in front of a smaller audience), this kind of result is very encouraging.

In general it seems that the more see of Sens. Obama and Biden, the more they like. Add to that the voter registration and mobilization effort of the Obama-Biden campaign, and it’s really easy to feel confident.

So, once again, I’m envisioning an election map that looks very blue when all is said and done. Unfortunately, it means that Sir Charles is probably right: “It’s going to get ugly“

Owwy (OR Lying Surrogates)

Looks like Dave is on a roll, so I’ll stay out of his way, I think…  still, a couple thoughts at this point…

VP debates are weird… the candidates spend most of their time talking about their running mates. Which makes me wonder what the value of these debates are. We can watch the Presidential debates to find out what that Presidential candidates think and believe.

The most immediate contrast I see right now is that Sen. Biden actually has stats and facts to support his argument. Gov. Palin has a “cuz I say so” thing going…  but I don’t what makes her think that she has credibility on these topics.