Slate’s Timothy Noah lays out his recommendations for watching tonight’s debate:
Tonight, whenever either candidate mentions a domestic-policy proposal, ask yourself the following question: “Will this cost the government a lot of money?” If the answer is “yes,” feel free to tune out discussion of the proposal’s substance…
Instead of trying to master the details of complicated new proposed initiatives, focus on the following question: Which of these guys will do a better job cleaning up the horrible fiscal mess left behind by President Bush’s first term? Because, when you get down to it, that’s the only honest job description for the domestic-policy part of this gig…
Another is to see if you can identify which candidate even recognizes that there’s a mess to clean up. Come to think of it, that isn’t a bad method for sizing up the foreign-policy debate part of this job, either.