And the winner of last night’s debate is …

… John Edwards, according to a Daily Kos insta-poll taken after the debate:

Daily Kos Readers Declared Edwards The Winner. According to the Daily Kos poll, “Who won the debate,” as of 10:30 pm after the debate John Edwards led the pack with 20% of the vote (1034), leading Obama at 17% (881), followed Clinton at 10% (530). The answer “More than one of the above” received 12% of the vote (600) and “None of the above” had 11% of the vote (584).

Edwards, BTW, was one of the four candidates who did not raise his hand in the affirmative when Brian Williams asked the candidates if they thought we were in a global war on terror. I’m sure that helped him win over the Nutroots contingent at Kos.

BTW, last night in my liveblogging on the debate, I talked about how I couldn’t get over how long it took for John Edwards to answer Williams’ question: “Who do you consider to be your moral leader?” For those of you who couldn’t bear to sit through the debate in its entirety, here’s a clip of that particular question and Edwards’ contemplating of a response. It’s just slightly over a minute, and worth watching, I think, just so you can get a feel for just how bizarre it was that it took him so long to answer it:

It took him ten seconds before he opened his mouth to answer the question. C’mon, is it really that hard to come up with someone who is your ‘moral leader’? I guess it is, if you believe you’re better than everyone else but don’t want to come right out and say so.

Update: ST reader CZ has the line of the night:

He really wanted to say his moral leader has been his hair stylist. But that would have raised questions that are even more difficult to answer.

Heh.