msnbc   |  October 11, 2012

Should religion have been discussed during the debate?

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell explains why questions about personal religion and describing one’s character as a man were inappropriate for the vice presidential debate. O’Donnell also says both sides will declare victory on the debate.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>> o'donnell who's in the spin room tonight. lawrence, your reaction and what you're hearing thus far.

>> reporter: rachel, this room was empty about three minutes ago. it just, during the final statements, this room filled up instantaneously with all the spinners who are ready to go. i think we saw the advantages and disadvantages of the two formats tonight. martha raddatz asking questions especially in the early going about foreign policy and following up then also asking questions that in my view have absolutely no business in a government with separation of church and state , for example. to ask two candidates, tell us because you're both catholic how your religion will affect your context as vice president, both candidates nodded to the question and moved quickly to a discussion of abortion. which is an actual governing question that she should have asked instead. then also her final question about what is unique about your character as a man. what about you as a man, do you bring to this office? they sped past that one, too. that's one of the examples of why asking a bunch of specific questions will eventually lead to something that just doesn't 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