I watched the VP debate last Thursday and was stunned at the amount of focus on the expectations game.  Sure, I'll agree with most other commentators that Palin beat expectations, but come on: we aren't deciding who can do better than expected.  We're trying to pick two people to lead our country.  And on that count, I think Biden easily beat Palin.

But I'm biased here, so let's look at the underlying data.  The instant polls after the debate showed that independents favored Biden two to one, and in the two days after the debate we're seeing Obama open up an even wider lead over McCain.  Check out the chart on electoral-vote.com today.  The uptick after the VP debate is striking.

But the media decided to focus on who won the expectations game, and few seem to be talking about the fact that so far the VP debate appears to have given Obama an extra 1 point advantage in the national polls.

I ranted before about this country falling for Palin when she was first announced.  Hopefully things have firmly turned around at that was just McCain's high water mark for the campaign.