Anyways, since more people were allowed to watch Debate III by our Media Lords and Masters, there are more post-mortems than for the Debate II. Note this post is subject to obsessive updating:

• Video is here, it seems.
• AP’s Hennessy gave the standard blow by blow, noting that Titus seemed to have a bunch of ideas for expanding educational opportunity while Gibbons was looking for ways to shrink it. Educational opportunity, I mean. Hennessy also seemed disappointed that nothing was said about Gib-gate, the affair about the non-assault by the non-intoxicated, usually tea-totalling Gibbons. At least that’s Siggy’s version, but he was buying lots people lots of drinks, including himself, so who knows? Hey, did you notice her name was NOT on the latest Reid hit piece from Solomon? What’s with that?
• Gleaner noted how folksy and old-fashioned Gibbons appeared, or tried to appear.
• Beacon thought Gibbons was out of touch on Healthcare cuz he seemed to be worried about the doctor shortage from a few years back. His solution: deny patients mutilated by quacks the right or redress. She called him Rip Van Winkle, which is a better analogy than Buck Rogers because at least Buck had an exciting time in the seventies dancing disco in spandex tights. Can’t picture Gibbons in spandex tights, myself. Red smoking jacket? Yeah.
• Blue Lion thought Dina rocked.
• Nevada UpNorth thought the debate was weak: "Gibbons was a mama’s boy, Titus didn’t deliver the punches she needed to."
• Gleaner, the morning after, has caught the dread disease of Gibitus: making up new words beginning with "gib-" to describe Jim Giblet Gibbons and his gibularities idiosyncrasies. He also thinks that Sig Rogich may be making the campaign’s message a bit too subtle. Too many late nights buying rounds in the local watering-hole may be taking their toll. The cure for Gibitus is Dina Titus, if you were wondering.
• Molly Ball found the debate format quirky and delivers the blow by blow for the videoless.
• Nevada Dems noted that Gibbons, when lacking ideas, simply borrows them from Titus.

• AP thought Gibbons said a bunch about Titus being a taxer. Maybe they were thinking about the first debate. I thought I heard him mention it once, like he knew his Southern Nevada audience wouldn’t mind taxing Northern Nevada more. But we’re just generous that way.
• AP2, the updated version of the above article, is a bit meatier.
• Nevada Dems found some flip flopping in Gibbons’ views on prescription drugs.
• Made a comment over at Gleaner’s Gube thread yet? I did, but I don’t have a life, either.
• Molly Ball gives her blow by blow of the debate. She says that Titus’s claim that Gibbons wants to make the Millenium Scholarship based on financial need was "not true. At the debate in Reno two weeks ago, Titus accused
  Gibbons of wanting to make means testing a part of the scholarship, and
  her campaign later was unable to back up the assertion that Gibbons had
  taken such a position." Maybe Gibbons never planned to make "means testing" a part of the scholarship, but according to the Sun, he did plan to add restrictions based on test scores: "[Gibbons] would use the SAT or another test as a new hurdle to winning a Millennium Scholarship." So, Gibbons plans to cut back the scholarship one way or another.
• The fellow who could get a job as a Bob Beers’ (who?) impersonator chimed in on the debate. He thought Gibbons was snappy in his remark about Dina spending every penny of the surplus, which is probably what Gibbons’ spending plans entail as well, and he thought that Dina’s zinger about Gibbons needing to study remedial budgeting was snappy, too. And he has a few things to say about the bizarreness of the Gibbons’ attack on Awwrnold’s state. There’s not much loyalty among Republicans these days.
• Ralston chimed in on on what he considered a bathetic un-debate. He found the staged format with pre-submitted questions "pointless". If you’re like me, you’ll find that the column shared that feature.
  
• Erin Neff didn’t like the first debate and didn’t like this one either. But she bores easily.
  

Another interesting question raised in the article: isn’t Gibbons’ "education first" initiative just an attempt to fix one of the problems caused by the supermajority silliness? The answer, again, is "yes". There would be no need for the pointless fix if the supermajority requirement didn’t exist.

Over at the Sun, J. Patrick Coolican talked about the lowered expectations which helped Gibbons in the first debate–in the sense that the Gibster didn’t throw up. So, next time we should just expect more. Next time, either Gibbons starts acting like an intelligent, well-prepared, knowledgeable candidate for Governor, or he loses. Let’s see if the Gibster can meet such minimal expectations. I bet he can’t. I double dare him to try, and I double dare the MSM and the people of Nevada to hold him to it.

More post-mortems here.

And Jon Ralston had another article about the practice of bundling, the practice used by rich folk to circumvent Nevada campaign laws by funding candidates through various corporate fronts. The practice is truly grotesque, and you should be asking your Nevada Assembly and Senate candidates to reform the laws allowing it.

• Desert Beacon notes Gibbons’ use of the Repubic playbook.
• RGJ discovered that some college students are confused.
• CFG-RJ seemed disappointed.
• Commentators to a Nevada Appeal story were not impressed by Gibguy.
• AP does the AP thing.
• Gleaner on salary noted, again, the Gibbons’ propensity for mindless jingoism.
• Gleaner off salary finds Gibbons to be a fragile, tormented soul.
• Keeping Tahoe Blau liked Titus’ specificity. Gibbons "education first"? Not so much.
• The Beers’ Lookalike doesn’t think Gibbons’ scaremongering over taxes will work out as well as the Gibster hopes.
• Nevada Democrats slice and dice the G-man.
• No Gibbonses lists the main points for supporting each candidate. Or not.
• Hagar thought Titus won on the specifics.
• Damon thinks Titus won on command of details and that Gibbons won the expectation game–by managing to keep his mouth flapping.
• Dullard Mush figures that Gibbons didn’t hurt himself much from the debate, despite his bumblings, because he got out what passes for his positions, but that Titus didn’t live up to expectations.
• CobbGobbler thought Gibbons won because he, Gibbons, didn’t do anything too stupid. CG likes Titus proposal for a longer legislative session.
• UpNorth thought Gibbons’ best moment was when he said he was born in Nevada.
• UpNorth also added a post about how 145% growth in state spending isn’t really all that much.
• Susan from Random Thoughts found the RGJ’s coverage to be biased.
• Over at Nye they don’t want Gibbons to save them any more money cuz they can’t afford it.
• Myrna goes over the results of her poll on the debate and fears that Gibbons won on the visceral appeal-to-the-stupid-part-of-the-brain level.
• Myrna thinks I’m cute, in a Stanley Kowalski way. Yeah, it’s off topic. Tough.
• Oh, and some ranter picked on Reagan. How off topic can you get?

Dead tree late-comers:

• Ralston says Ralston-like things and thought Gibbons’ "e" is for "expensive" remark was the high point of the evening.
• Sun points out the stretchers from the debate and paradoxically decides that the Gibster is effective at being uninfluential. Or something like that. And you learn more than you want to about that stupid power-ranking website, and that inside the Beltway types pay as much attention to it as you do. And look who puts the "e" in "expensive":

Gibbons led the fight for a state constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority to pass any tax increase.

However, Gibbons has
been a member of Congress during a period of flowing red ink. After a
period of balanced budgets and surpluses at the end of the Clinton
administration, federal deficits have soared in recent years.

Gibbons has been part
of the Republican majorities that have approved large spending
increases, big tax cuts – many directed at the wealthy – and lots of
new borrowing.

According to
Americans for Tax Reform, federal spending has increased 7.2 percent
per year since 2000, which is well above historical levels. The 2005
deficit was $318 billion.

Gibbons has not been
immune from criticism on this score. Citizens Against Government Waste
named him its December 2003 "Porker of the Month" for $225,000 he
brought home to fix a Sparks public swimming pool.

• Oh yeah. The Sun also turned the debate into a cartoon.
• Gibbons wins by not throwing-up.
• Student Newspapers: UNLV’s Rebel Yell and UNR’s Nevada Sagebrush. Or is it the other way around? UNR’s conservative paper the Pack Patrol apparently didn’t cover the debate, but they do have an interesting piece on Beer Pong.

Even deader-tree later comers:

• Just skip Morrison’s post-mortem.
• Neff thinks people who are thinking of voting for Gibbons are rubes. Me too.
• Molly Ball wins with the longest post-mortem.
• Coolican wonders about our lowered expectations.