I'm Sorry, What?

I was reading The Observer, the student news paper on campus (or at least the only one worth reading) and I noticed an interesting headline. It read "Students call debate a tie" in reference to the vice presidential debate, so I naturally had to read on. Toward the end of the article I stumbled on this quote from the Notre Dame Debate Club:

However, they said that overall Biden had stronger rebuttals and that Biden played Palin's inexperience to his advantage.
Overall, the four indicated that Palin was the victor because all she neede to do to win was "stay in there".

Im sorry, but on what planet does the person who has stronger rebuttal and uses the other person's weaknesses to their advantage the loser? I concede that Gov. Palin performed much better than I would have expected, granted she didn't answer any of the questions that were asked, which had to make things easier. Still, you can't win by simply staying in there. Is the underdog in a swimming or track race awarded the gold for fourth place simply because he was expected to finish last and he managed to "stay in there"? No, of course not, we would all consider that ludicris. In much the same way, Gov. Palin cannot win a debate in which she was clearly the weaker debator simply because she was expected to run off the stage crying at some point, but maybe thats just me.