Debate Part Deux

Incidentally:
I'm forgoing my normal crankiness about the nature of debates. I'm not wild about deciding important issues with rhetorical contests. It's particularly dangerous to get mixtures of issues and rhetoric in uncertain proportions. But who knows? Maybe people really are able to sift through the rhetoric and attend to the substantive claims.

But what a bad format for getting substance across. There's not enough substance there for wonkier types, and it's probably too fast and condensed for people who aren't already pretty familiar with the positions. But that guess could clearly be wrong.

Still, it did seem to me that Obama was stronger on substance...but, then, I tend to agree more with his positions, so that judgment isn't worth much.