Who won the debate?

It’s a silly question and I hate it. It doesn’t make sense, because these things we have every four years are not formal debates. Now, I was never on the debate team or in a debating society, but from what I know, a formal debate covers a single topic. For example, “Resolved: Fredonia should enter into an alliance with the League of Planets.” Or, “Resolved: truth is more important than beauty.” One side argues for, the other side argues against. Afterwards, a panel of judges decides which side had the better argument, and that side is the winner.

These presidential debates aren’t like that. There’s no single topic — there are a bunch of different topics.

On the other hand, there really is a single topic, a meta-topic. “Resolved: Candidate X would be a better president of the United States than Candidate Y.”

But again, the question is academic. Kerry “won” his debates against Bush (“You forgot Poland!,” “Need some wood?”), but he lost the election. Debates can help, but they’re not decisive.

So the question is fluid and subjective, and “who won the debate?” doesn’t automatically determine who gets elected.

Also, the actual debate is only half of what happens. The other half is how the debate gets spun. Perceptions will gel after a day or two. I thought Gore wiped the floor with Bush after their first debate in 2000, but then this little meme spread around that Gore kept “sighing” and that he therefore lost. What utter bullshit. (God… to look back on 2000 and see that so much turned on so little.)

There’s some chatter now on Talking Points Memo and Andrew Sullivan that McCain never made eye contact with Obama tonight and that it strikes some people as odd. Part of me says, so the hell what? Eye contact doesn’t matter. But the other part of me thinks it would be nice payback for 2000.

Tomorrow night will be equally as important as tonight. Tomorrow night is when “Saturday Night Live” will do its debate parody. “Makin’ progress!” “It’s hard work!” “Lockbox.” “Strategery.” Those are what I remember most from SNL’s debate parodies in the last couple of elections. Darrell Hammond or Fred Armisen — whose Obama portrayal still makes me cringe in its utter inaccuracy — will speak some lines that will be watched and replayed all over TV and the web, and that’s what will take hold.

Who won the debate? (1) It’s the wrong question, and (2) we’ll know the answer on November 4.