Just a quick personal word on Gwen Ifill as debate moderator and her possible bias on the debate. I appeared on The Newshour one night with her to discuss bankruptcy reform. I found her to be eminently fair and well-prepared. She understood the key issues and asked pointed questions for both myself and the other guest. Based solely on the broadcast I would not have been able to discern what her position was. But of all the interviews I’ve done with the media, I founder her to be one of the smartest and most even-handed interviewers that I’ve dealt with.
You can’t necessarily extrapolate from my experience because she just may not have felt strongly about bankruptcy reform (how can that be!), but based on my experience with her, she seemed really smart, well-prepared, and fair.