Vice Presidential Debate Media Coverage
The days leading up to the October 2 Vice Presidential Debate were arguably the most anticipated days of this long and arduous 18 month battle for the White House. When the debate finally occurred, the ratings matched the high anticipation for the debate. According to bloomberg.com, 70 million people watched the Vice Presidential Debate. In comparison, only 52 million people watched the first Presidential Debate.
The debate was obviously covered by every major network. I chose to watch the debate on NBC, because i have HD TV, and love to see the candidates passive aggressive barbs exchanged in the highest clarity possible.
After the debate, there was post debate instant analysis and coverage on every network. For the post debate coverage, i chose to watch MSNBC, because i am a huge fan of their political team, especially Keith Olberman. On MSNBC's post debate coverage, they discussed how Palin and Biden each lived up to their own expectations for the debate. Palin deflected answering questions directly, while Biden avoided going after Palin, and saved his harshest words for McCain.
Then i waited until today, to get a perspective of analysis days after the debate, to compare with instantly. For today, i went to cnn.com, where talk of the debate had subsided, and what talk of the debate there was focused on the SNL spoof aired Saturday. The SNL spoof article from cnn.com can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/10/06/cho.snl.politics.cnn
The reason i think that coverage of the debate has tapered off is because both Obama and McCain are hitting the campaign trails harder then ever now, since there are only 29 days remaining, and Obama is starting to pull away in the polls. Simply put, the Vice Presidential Debate's expiration date has come and gone, and now it is up to the top candidates, not the Vice Presidential candidates, to fill up the news wire.