belong in the debate. but there was much more energy to it, obviously. there's much more energy in this room right now. i think both sides are going to have a real fight in this room tonight about who did better in this debate. one of the things that is not clear to me is how easy this debate was to follow. i think those of us who are well versed in everything that these candidates are saying, it's very clear. when paul ryan starts referring to the cbo, i know what he means. i'm not sure what the swing voter, the low-information voter hears when they hear references to the cbo. and similarly, with some of the points that joe biden made. i understood it completely, but sometimes there's a disjointed quality to it and i'm not quite sure exactly what ended up getting delivered to voters tonight. >> let's go now to steve schmidt, who's a senior adviser to the mccain/palin campaign in 2008. watching this as a republican, steve, i will just say in the room here us all watching together we were all much more riveted than we were last week during the presidential debate.