And the winner of the 3rd Debate is ...

... Bob Schieffer !

Yes, given that I stayed up from 3am to 4:30am today watching the debate, and given that it was inforamative _only_ due to the moderator, Bob Schieffer, who started the debate with these amazing lines:

"I will encourage them to ask follow-up questions to each other. If they do not, I will."

and then followed it with

"By now we have heard aaallll the talking points, so lets try to tell the people tonight some things that they haven't heard."

And with those statements, he managed to do what no other moderator did in the past three debates -- actually get the candidates to talk to "each other" and directly address the points.

Of course, it was not 100% straight talk, but waaaay more informative and "debative" and the other debates.

So for this great performance Mr. Schieffer, I think you clearly deserve the gold medal.

As far as the candidates are concerned, I think noone clearly won this, but I certainly got to know more about the candidates' differences in views through the debate, and thus feel that the debate served it purpose :).

Full video at NBC and at YouTube [thx L], Full audio at NPR.

NPR's fact checking, and info about who Joe the Plumber is. Also super detailed fact check.

If you want a good audio analysis, this NPR post might be for you.

And, as a bonus, I give you this interview of Bob Schieffer:



And if you still haven't seen the documentary I talked about yesterday, go watch it!