Does ABC News Love America?

Usually I can muster a good chuckle at the tendency of the mainstream media to trumpet shock over substance in its campaign coverage, but last night's debate only made me angry. Here's why: watching them with me was a bona-fide undecided voter, the likes of which I haven't seen in a long time.

As most people I know (myself included) foam at the mouth in rabid support of whatever candidate won their endorsement long ago, this former Independent (who shall remain nameless) has been struggling to decide between her options, making great efforts to throw her weight behind one of the presidential hopefuls by scouring policy plans, news reports, and op-eds.

It doesn't matter to the decided what happens in these debates. You get behind your chosen candidate—you cheer their careful explanations and their snappy comebacks, you find an argument to contradict any points the other candidates make. But it matters to the undecided, and it mattered to my friend who was understandably frustrated and disappointed at the end. "I've learned nothing to help me make up my mind," she said.

As Ed Rendell pointed out, the first 45 minutes of this most recent debate were wasted on "gotcha" issues that have already been analyzed and answered to death, like the Reverend Wright scandal, Bitter-gate, and the Bosnian sniper story. With an endless war raging, the economy collapsing, and environmental and social crises looming, George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson chose to insult Pennsylvanians by presenting us as equally concerned about things like flag pins on candidates' lapels.

(Disclaimer: Sure, some people care about those things, but the majority do not.)

What we saw last night was a poorly managed, WWE-style political wrestling match, with the candidates positioned to take their jabs at each other and psych up their respective crowds with each tit-for-tat. It's no wonder there are such fierce battles between supporters of each, and that those who have yet to decide feel more and more like sitting it out on the sidelines.

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