article question

[redgiant]

Presidential debate verdict: No clear winner between John McCain and Barack Obama - Telegraph

US newspapers struggled to assign a winner of the presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, describing it as "tepid gruel", and "a generational clash".

We all know that the winner should be either McCain or Obama. Why does it use "a" here? Is it grammatically wrong if I use "the" here?

[efljack]

"Winner" is a singular common count noun, so it's usually preceded by an "a". "The" sounds strange to me, but I don't think that it would be poor grammar.

Jack
www.youtube.com/efljack