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The Palin V.P. Interview – Debate 2008

Posted by TONY CAMPBELL, Columnist in At TMV, Politics.
Oct 2nd, 2008 | Comments

Governor Sarah Palin proved that she belonged on the Republican ticket tonight. Although there were questions not answered or sidestepped (bankruptcy and consumer credit), I thought she handled herself well on the big stage. This was not a game changer for either side. Biden was understandably more knowledgeable on policy issues like the War in Iraq and the Financial Crisis. Palin was strongest on energy policy and was pretty on top of her facts about Biden’s and Obama’ voting records in the United States Senate.

Key points of the debate:

Palin pointing out that Biden said that Obama was not ready to be Commander-In-Chief.

Biden was at his most emotional when he directly-attacked the notion that McCain was a Maverick – paraphrasing “John McCain is not a Maverick on any issue that Americans really care about – health care, the War or the economy.”

Shocker of the night: Biden and Palin agreed on being against Gay Marriage while acknowledging the need for civil and legal rights for Gay Couples.

On this touchy issue for social conservatives, here is what Palin said during the debate:

“But I also want to clarify, if there’s any kind of suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves, you know, I am tolerant and I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don’t agree with me on this issue.

But in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.”

It will be very interesting to see if the McCain campaign is forced to comment on this little ticking bomb left by their V.P. candidate.

Finally, the War in Iraq was a major point of disagreement of this debate. Obama’s time table of withdrawal vs. McCain and total victory.

Palin made her best point of the night when she said that Obama wanted “to throw up the white flag of surrender.”

Sarah Palin made it quite clear that she is not surrendering either.

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StockBoySF

A great follow-up questions would have been if McCain/Palin would repeal the "Don't ask, don't tell" military policy. McCain in the primary did not think it should be repealed....

I think Palin screwed up on McCain's position... "But in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.”'

McCain believes that the challenges facing same-sex couples can be solved if gay and lesbian couples enter into contracts.... and it is through these contracts that gay and lesbian couples can gain the same rights as married straights.

pacatrue

That's fascinating, Tony. Iraq divides people so thoroughly. I thought that the surrender comment was her absolute worst moment of the night. She accused a carefully designed withdrawal of being surrender when the very PM of the country says that's approximately the right plan and isn't that different than the current administration is working on with Iraq. I got the feeling from that that she'd be very willing to go right back to the attacks on patriotism that we've been dealing with for 7 years.

Putting that aside, I found Palin's answers on gay rights more vague than others did. She's tolerant. That's fine. That's the standard conservative line: I tolerate gays and have gay friends, but I oppose this and that legal protection for them.

It all depends on how far she's willing to go with the last bit about hospital visitation laws and related things. For instance, does that actually mean she'd support some form of civil recognition not called marriage which grants all the legal rights of marriage? Or does it mean something much different than that? It wasn't at all clear to me.

Amanda

Pacatrue, you took the words out of my mouth. I agree that saying withdrawing from Iraq is waving the white flag of surrender was a bad moment. Palin needs to explain that rationale, because unless I'm mistaken, Iraq is a sovereign nation and they're asking us (politely for now) to get ready to leave. So is it only surrender because a Democrat is calling for withdrawl? How does McCain define victory in Iraq? What are his specific objectives? How does he intend to achieve them? What conditions have to be met, in his opinion, before we can withdraw American troops?

Palin was poised last night. I'll give her that. But she stuck to her talking points instead of digging into the issues. She relied on soundbites over substance and she evaded a lot of direct questions to continue talking about the few areas where she does have some experience. And her kill-em-with-kindness folksiness may have won over some people, but the seemingly forced, false nature of it made my skin crawl.

DLS

It was a draw. 53-47 Biden over Palin is not enough to have really mattered at all. Palin the McCain-prop did her job just fine and now everything's up to McCain, sink or swim.

The _real_ shocker, for intelligent people observing the debate, was when Biden said he and Obama wanted to let judges rewrite terms and conditions of home loans, to be able to not only reduce interest but also the _principal_. This is outright Third World political-risk brazen theft as well as obvious loser-vote-buying. Who is their prospective treasury secretary, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, or the Iranian revolutionary government of the early 1980s?

(Biden also appealed to envy and resentment by pushing for progressive taxation on the fictitious, dishonest basis of "fairness" a la Cambridge, MA -- Berkeley East.)

Palin failed to score a moral and fiscal knockout on the loan issue (she changed the subject back to energy policy, a real blunder) and said nothing on the "fairness" lie. Those constituted two moments of demerit by Palin. (Same for shallow statements and McCain-debate-style repeated sound bites.) Palin was the better of the two from the start of the debate until her blunder, and at that point Biden stopped playing it safe and became more animated and said more of more value. The Dems should "let Biden be Biden," turn him loose even if there may still be a risk of gaffes (which may now be seen as less of a risk than before).

DLS

"Palin [...] stuck to her talking points [...] relied on soundbites"

This was McCain's notable failure (more than once) in the first presidential debate.

Reality check -- for those who watched and listened, or who just listened, in both debates so far, which candidates made you wince or say, "No, no" upon hearing something poor that was said? In my case it was McCain and Palin who triggered this.

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