Good Friday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

And I'm Anna Palmer. Okay, that was normal, right? That made sense. That felt somewhat right.

We learned things. There was not much shouting. We didn't go to bed, gnashing our teeth or smashing our fists into the wall.

The final tilt between Joe Biden and President Donald Trump

was refreshingly standard, and that was good. The two men were forced to talk in turn, and the moderator,

Kristen Welker, did a bang-up job on the largest stage of any political journalist's career.

And for that, she got well-deserved plottits. Of course, the bar for Biden

and Trump was low. It may have been skimming the floor. For Trump, that meant not acting

completely and embarrassingly out of control, interrupting at every turn, and disrespecting the debate

rules. He reminded us that he wasn't a typical politician, but at times he almost looked like one,

which was okay because we know he isn't and don't need to be reminded at every turn with a bullhorn.

Sometimes people want to hear information and not static.

For Fishfan, sometimes fast enough for you is good, and for deadheads when space turns into Stella Blue, it's occasionally centering.

The New York Times put it this way.

Before the president's last best chance to change the trajectory of his re-election bid,

his mandate Thursday evening was at once clear and complicated, be less like Donald J. Trump.

It can be said that he tried by his standard. For Biden that meant delivering cogent arguments, only tripping up majorly once, saying he wants

to get rid of the oil industry rather than just cutting subsidies and not getting sucked into

Trump's vortex.

They ably contrasted their general governing and substantive theories.

This is what we wanted here, right?

45 million Americans have already voted. So for them, watching the Giants Eagles game

...