As everyone has said, with the Governor sitting on a double-digit lead with the California electorate, two things needed to happen in order for Phil Angelides to walk away a ‘winner’ in the hour-long showdown.  1) Phil Angelides needed to rise to the occasion, showing some sort of intensity and command of the race that has back lacking thus far, and 2) Arnold Schwarzenegger needed to at least stumble if not outright blow some portion of the debate.
 
Neither of those things happenned and it is my opinion that Arnold Schwarzenegger clearly won the debate, not only because neither of the two items mentioned above took place, but because I thought that Schwarzenegger clearly did a better job.  He was more comfortable, and it showed.  He was articulate and on point, he understood how to be serious and at the same time inject levity into the debate, and he also did a good job in delivering his campaign points across to debate watchers.

Angelides was not able to shake off the persona of "Mr. Accountant" that makes me want to yawn every time he opens his mouth.
 
Phil Angelides did win two awards from me tonight, which he can take as consolation prices as the "Best Debater" Award eluded him, going to Schwarzenegger. 
 
The "Worst Outfit" award — this horrific brown suit with a blue shirt and brown and blue tie that looked like what it probably was – an attempt by a businessman worth many, many, many millions of dollars to ‘dress down’ to appeal to blue collar workers. 
 
The "Dumbest Quote" award, for this little gem:  "We need to do for California what Bill Clinton did for America" — I guess Angelides will have to wonder what to do on Monday when he finds out there are no more female interns working on his campaign.
 
Anyways, to close on a more serious note.  FR readers know that I am even handed, and have no problems praising the Governor when he does things with which I agree, and also being critical when he does things with which I disagree.  In that spirit of even-handedness, I would have no trouble telling readers if I thought that Governor Schwarzenegger failed to perform tonight
 
The Governor not only stepped up and held his own tonight.  But he did so well.  He only needed a ‘draw’ for Angelides to have an opportunity to make something of the debate.  Angelides never had that chance.
 
The winner of the debate was clearly Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 
I do, though, agree with Tom Ross’ last point below…  Was anyone (else) watching?
 
(On a site note, kudos goes to the Team Arnold Communications Shop for churning out nine e-mails during the debate refuting information put out there by Angelides.  Some praise here might make them feel better for the hard work!)

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 7th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.