The most famous political debate of this century was Kennedy/Nixon in 1960. The thing that is most remembered about the debate was that people who listened on radio thought Nixon won, while people who watched it on TV thought Kennedy won.

Since I was in transit, I listened to the whole VP debate on radio and my overall review would have been giving Edwards a slight edge. Considering that I'm a big fan of Edwards and go along with his politics a lot more than Cheney, I would admit that I'm biased, so I guess I should say if I could shut off my biases, Cheney might have barely won the debate.

Listening to the debate breakdown with Chris Matthews and his crew, you would have thought, though, that Edwards was completely overmatched. Matthews made it seem like Cheney was far superior to Edwards, which I definitely don't think happened. On CNN, the point of view was that the debate was a draw and on Fox, Sean Hannity controlled most of the post-debate coverage, so you can guess who he went with.

Watching some of the replay of the debate, I was struck by thinking that most women watching the two would have sided with Edwards. Obviously looks has something to do with this (by the way guys, don't think this is just a female trait, as who would rate higher in a debate, Diane Feinstein or Jennifer Granholm), but also the way he speaks in a style that's much more relatable to women than the other 3 candidates.

I know that it's been reported that many female swing voters (aka soccer moms) have put domestic issues on the backburner and are most concerned about security, but Edwards spoke tough enough about military strength and at the same time showed a compassionate side that Cheney is incapable of doing.

This is why I'm not surprised that most of the undecided voters (around 70%) thought Edwards won the debate. Sure a majority of Men like Matthews got all tingly watching Cheney come off large and in charge, but Edwards is helping Kerry gain back the gender gap he needs to control to win the 2004 race.