Online polls at about 8:00 - 8:30 pm:

CNN.com: Edwards 82%, Cheney 14%, tie 4% (54524 votes)
Orlando Sentinel: Edwards 75%, Cheney 25% (30004 votes)
MSNBC: Edwards 76%, Cheney 24% (186952 votes)
Akron Beacon-Journal: Edwards 98%, Cheney 2% (19843 votes)
Fox News: Edwards 57%, Cheney 41%, didn't watch 1%, nota 1% (39639 votes)
Wall Street Journal: Edwards 95%, Cheney 4%, tie 1% (6152 votes)
Newsday.com: Edwards 96%, Cheney 4% (22666 votes)
CBS News: Edwards 78%, Cheney 21%, tie 2% (no numbers available)
CBS03 Philadelphia: Edwards 83%, Cheney 17% (2591 votes)
Houston Chronicle: Edwards 90%, Cheney 10% (1737 votes)
Detroit News: Edwards 89%, Cheney 11% (no numbers available)
Campaign Online: Edwards 95%, Cheney 5% (no numbers available)
Boston.com: Edwards 84%, Cheney 11%, tie 4%, both poor 1% (3982 votes)

Huh. I'd have thought this one would have tipped to Cheney. Not that the mendacious moneygrub didn't lie through his teeth more or less constantly, but to my mind Edwards let him get away with it. To illustrate, here's one of the few Edwards got right:

C: Kerry has voted 98 times to raise taxes
E: yes, and he's voted over six hundred times to cut them

That is exactly the sort of misleading cherry-picking of data that Cheney did all night, and I wish Edwards had nailed him for it every time and pointed out what Cheney was up to. Alternet predicted many of Cheney's lies, and provides the facts that Edwards should have had at his fingertips. For instance, Cheney claimed never to have met Edwards; it shouldn't have taken Edwards more than ten seconds to point out that lie. That was in reference to Edwards' attendance record, to which Bush's record-breaking holiday habit was a readymade reply that Edwards didn't bother with. I could go on, but it's too depressing.

The spousal unit made another depressing observation: perhaps Cheney's wonk act turned people off -- the wonkiness, that is, not the fact that it was a carefully scripted series of deceptions. Gah. I'd hate to think Edwards could win by spouting generalities and generally being handsome, but I guess I'll take it if it gets Apocalypse Inc out of the White House.

Two upbeat points before bed. First, in light of recent polls showing that up to 40% of Americans still think there is/was some link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, Edwards' insistence on the truth in that instance makes more sense, and may have done some real swaying of votes. Second, spousal unit reports that the post-debate factchecking on CNN was harsh on Cheney's lies, so maybe there's a wider awareness of his deceitful nature than I'd thought.