In the end, it didn’t happen. In the highly-watched Vice Presidential debate Republican Gov. Sarah Palin didn’t flop, but she didn’t match the home-run excitement she generated with her GOP convention acceptance speech. Democratic Senator Joe Biden didn’t stick his foot in his mouth and generate a major gaffe that would dominate the news cycle for days.
Most likely the impact will be this:
–Partisans on each side will be pleased how their candidate did. The GOP base will breathe a sight of relief, because Palin showed she is suitable to run for Veep. The Democrats will marvel at Biden’s grasp of information and his passion, which seems real and heartfelt. And each side will pooh-pooh the other.
–Everyone will be watching how independent voters react to the debate. And how women voters react.
The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder gives this quick roundup of the first polls on the debate:
CNN’s poll gives the debate to Biden, 51% to 36%…..Frank Luntz’s focus group found Palin’s performance to be most effective…CBS News’s poll: 46% of uncommitted voters surveyed gave the debate to Biden, where 21% thought Palin won. But 55% said their opinion of Palin changed for the better; 53% said their opinions of Biden changed in the positive direction as well. 18% of uncommitted voters are now committed to Obama; 10% are committed to McCain.
According to sources, in the official Democratic dial groups, Palin’s lowest jag came when she said that Obama’s plan raised the white flag of surrender….Sen. Biden was fairly even all evening, with a high spike when he talked about his single parenting… Palin had more high spikes and low spikes.
Republicans and those who believe that if Palin didn’t stammer and/or look like a Tina Fey satire will declare her the victor. And given how low expectations were, that argument will be made (and is).
But the key is: will polling in coming days show that this debate is in any way a game-changer? With most polls showing serious erosion to the extent that McCain is pulling out of Michigan, this debate was critical for the McCain campaign because one of three things could have happened:
(1) If Palin failed to perform adequately, there would be further erosion in her polling positives. When she was nominated she received a quick burst of support not only from the GOP base but other women and independent voters.
(2) If Palin hit a home run, she could regain her widespread support.
(3) If Palin survived and put in a relatively steady performance, she could shore up the party base.
The third one is most likely what happened tonight. If Biden or Palin is judged to have won, it probably won’t be a massive game changer. A major polling shift will most likely have to come due to some other event or campaign issue. Here’s a transcript of the debate.
HERE’S AN EXTENSIVE CROSS-SECTION OF NEWS MEDIA AND WEBLOG REACTION TO THE DEBATE:
Sarah Palin entered the vice presidential debate in St. Louis tonight facing an electorate increasingly dubious about her readiness for the second-highest office in the nation.
With a relatively steady performance, the Alaska governor may have helped arrest voters’ declining confidence in her candidacy since John McCain first put her on the Republican ticket five weeks ago.
But it is unclear if Palin’s much-anticipated showdown against Democrat Joe Biden will significantly shake up a campaign whose momentum increasingly has appeared to be with Barack Obama.
Debates typically reinforce voters’ existing perceptions, rather than dramatically alter them. And Biden, whose history of making gaffes is Washington legend, stuck largely to safe ground.
The pit bull is back, and she can still bite.
Sarah Palin, the GOP’s self-proclaimed “pit bull in lipstick,” threw off her muzzle in Thursday night’s highly anticipated vice presidential debate and took more than a few chomps out of rival Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
…..The faceoff came on what started out as a rough day for Republican nominee John McCain, who Thursday pulled staff and advertising out of Democratic-leaning Michigan in what amounted to a GOP surrender in the Wolverine State.
But with expectations so low headed into last night’s first and only vice presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Palin seemed to win by not losing.
She spoke in complete sentences, unlike her performance in several prior TV appearances. She parried Biden’s jabs and often pivoted into areas like energy and taxes, both within her comfort zone.
And she cast herself as the fresh face in the race for the White House – and Biden as the Beltway insider.
But both candidates largely avoided conforming to stereotypes: Palin appeared to hold her own with Biden, a veteran senator and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, sounding more assured than she has in recent interviews, and Biden did not commit any notable gaffes or let his answers wander well off the given subject matter.
The bulk of the debate featured Biden criticizing McCain and Palin critiquing Obama, rather than a focus on the records of the two vice presidential candidates. Biden sought to closely link McCain to the economic and foreign policies of the Bush administration, while Palin portrayed McCain as a reformist who had sounded an early warning about the country’s financial crisis. Palin twice chided Biden for looking to the past rather than the future, at one point quipping in Ronald Reagan style: “Say it ain’t so Joe, there you go again looking backwards.”
Palin made what may have been her most aggressive move on Iraq, saying that Obama “opposed funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,” and bringing up a comment from Biden’s days as a presidential candidate, when he criticized an Obama vote on troop funding as “political.”
Biden dismissed the suggestion of a difference between the two ticketmates. “Barack Obama and I agree completely on one thing — you’ve got to have a timeline” to draw down the number of troops in Iraq and hand over responsibilities to the Iraqi government, Biden said.
To Palin’s charge that the Democratic plan was tantamount to “waving the white flag of surrender,” Biden responded by saying that “John McCain has been dead wrong on the fundamental issues related to the conduct of the war. Barack Obama has been right. Those are the facts.”
Ms. Palin, who displayed more confidence and fluency than she did in recent television interviews, largely refrained from the cutting comments she has made in some of her speeches. From the beginning, the debate, in St. Louis, was marked by an air of cordiality, when Ms. Palin, who was meeting Mr. Biden for the first time, asked, “Hey, can I call you Joe?” and Mr. Biden amiably replied that she could.
That folksy manner accompanied the populist tone that Ms. Palin deployed throughout the debate, even as she discussed such complex issues as the subprime mortgage crisis.
…..Ms. Palin, who displayed more confidence and fluency than she did in recent television interviews, largely refrained from the cutting comments she has made in some of her speeches. From the beginning, the debate, in St. Louis, was marked by an air of cordiality, when Ms. Palin, who was meeting Mr. Biden for the first time, asked, “Hey, can I call you Joe?” and Mr. Biden amiably replied that she could.
That folksy manner accompanied the populist tone that Ms. Palin deployed throughout the debate, even as she discussed such complex issues as the subprime mortgage crisis.
—The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson:
Exactly an hour into the debate, Joe Biden began an answer by saying, “Facts matter, Gwen.”
To him, maybe. To Sarah Palin, maybe not. The pattern, so far, has been one of Biden presenting facts and Palin countering with… saying stuff. Sometimes she throws in a fact, but mostly she seems to be offering a string of approximate policy positions, encomiums to the American spirit, disputed interpretations of Barack Obama’s record and anecdotes from Alaska.
She has a certain charm, but I wonder how viewers are reacting to the way she just declines to answer the question at hand and pivots to more solid ground. I had forgotten how effective Biden can be in these debates. So far, he hasn’t been patronizing or insulting. In terms of working-class street cred, Palin is in a league – or a universe – of her own. (Don’t ya think?) But Biden holds his own.
CNN Senior Political analyist Bill Schneider:”Palin’s answers do not lack confidence, they lack coherence.”
Gov. Sarah Palin made it through the vice-presidential debate on Thursday without doing any obvious damage to the Republican presidential ticket. By surviving her encounter with Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. and quelling some of the talk about her basic qualifications for high office, she may even have done Senator John McCain a bit of good, freeing him to focus on the other troubles shadowing his campaign.
It was not a tipping point for the embattled Republican presidential ticket, the bad night that many Republicans had feared. But neither did it constitute the turning point the McCain campaign was looking for after a stretch of several weeks in which Senator Barack Obama seemed to be gaining the upper hand in the race. Even if he no longer has to be on the defensive about Ms. Palin, Mr. McCain still faces a tough environment with barely a month until the election, as he acknowledged hours before the debate by effectively pulling his campaign out of Michigan, a Democratic state where Mr. McCain’s advisers had once been optimistic of victory.
“This is going to help stop the bleeding,” said Todd Harris, a Republican consultant who worked for Mr. McCain in his first presidential campaign. “But this alone won’t change the trend line, particularly in some of the battleground states.”
Weblog Reaction
–Glenn Reynolds has an extensive must read roundup HERE.
Biden didn’t put the boot in; he didn’t come off as sexist; he didn’t make any obvious gaffes. Palin didn’t collapse and pushed through the debate with enough speed not to wobble. But it felt as if she needed the speed in order not to wobble. Her inexperience showed; her tone worked best at first and then began to grate. I don’t think this debate changed the direction of this election campaign, and I think Palin’s performance will buck up base Republicans but actually unnerve some independents.
The campaign’s trajectory remains unaltered. Palin’s inability to answer real questions, her capacity to avoid follow-ups, her slightly manic quality, and her inability to relate to working class voters came across. Biden did not talk too much; he made no sexist gaffes; he didn’t appear to be overweening; he seemed like a nice guy. I think she managed to avoid a tailspin; he reassured. It will stem the GOP collapse a little. But it won’t change the race.
By a knockout, Joe Biden was the more effective, better-informed vice presidential candidate Thursday night.
Granted, Sarah Palin did not look like she was channeling a duncy Tina Fey. Palin looked far more confident than many people had expected. Her folksy approach to answering questions did get old rather quickly, though.
Overall, Biden’s strengths overwhelmed Palin’s.
…Palin did not melt down during the debate, so John McCain’s campaign team will claim that was a victory.
But Biden was far more effective at appearing ready to become the next vice president of the United States.
–From Current’s Hack The Debate II where voters left a long list of Twitter “tweets.” Click on THIS LINK to see more but here is a cross section:
*Oh, she’s nervous. That was some faux chumminess.
*Are you sure it’s not Tina Fey up there?
*Wow, she invoked the Almighty American Soccer Mom.
*We are watching the future best of Washington and worst of Washington right now.
*Will Palin ever actually give a straight answer to a straight question? We’ll see tonight….
*Biden is holding himself back. It looks like he’s just waiting for Palin to slip up.
*I don’t have a subprime mortgage. Since losing my job in July, I may face foreclosure due to lack of work. How will the candidates help me?
*Neither speakers are answering the questions.
*Do you seriously think that it’s only Palin that is using a script? They both rehearsed for this. We are watching a puppet show.
*Save Darfur…after we bail out the bank.
Sarah Palin looked presidential.
Joe Biden looked tired.
Sarah made history.
Biden is history.
***
Prediction: Watch for a whole new, severe strain of Palin Derangement Syndrome to begin tonight.
They hated her before tonight. They are going to pour on more unfathomable hate at a level we have never seen before.
Sarah, we’re praying for you.
Tonight’s debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah “Main Street, Wasilla” Palin yielded few fireworks, but Biden did a good job of keeping the focus where it should be — on John McCain, his miserable voting record and the fact that a McCain presidency would look a lot like the disaster we’ve seen from George Bush.
Sarah Palin was supposed to fall off the stage at her vice presidential debate Thursday evening. Instead, she ended up dominating it.
She not only kept Joe Biden on the defensive for much of the debate, she not only repeatedly attacked Barack Obama, but she looked like she was enjoying herself while doing it.
…Biden was somber, serious and knowledgeable. And he seemed to think that debates were about facts. He had a ton of them.
Nothing happened to change the dynamics of this race. Palin proved that she’s still unable to answer the questions posed to her, but she also didn’t fall flat on her face. And in the ridiculously depressed expectations for the governor of Alaska, she didn’t crash and burn. But she didn’t need to maintain the status quo. That’s toxic territory for her. She needed to prove that she could get beyond pre-packaged talking points to demonstrating some capacity for analytical thought. In that regard, she failed.
On the merits, Biden won easy. On the things that debates are scored on, it was a draw. And for us Democrats, that’s the same as victory.
And one more note — Gwen Ifill was excellent. Like Lehrer, I forgot she was on stage, and that’s the way moderators should be.
–At National Review’s The Corner there were some posts praising Palin. Here is a post that both praises and criticizes her.
–Former Democratic campaign manager Bob Shrum, writing in the Huffington Post:
The last two Democratic VP nominees fell short in their debates; Lieberman was routed and never even fought back. Biden did the job for Democrats while Palin sounded like Kozinski’s Chance the Gardener mouthing empty phrases. In successive sentences she said “there you go again” and “doggone.” She talked about ordinary people; Biden eloquently showed he actually cares about the middle class. She was essentially phony and tin-eared after Biden spoke emotionally about his family — and about raising his sons as a single father after their mother was killed and they almost died in an auto accident — she spouted pol-talk cliches. He has a real emotional IQ; she sounds like an Ozzie and Harriett script (a reference which shows my age — and a phony folksiness that reveals her inauthentic authenticity).
Today McCain pulled out of Michigan; the economic news worsened. The electoral map is smaller; the economy is smaller; and the odds on McCain are longer and longer. The press probably will give Palin credit for not falling down on stage. She couldn’t deal with many of the questions directly or most of the facts, so she bloviated according to plan. She winked at us; the voters won’t wink back at her. Pat Buchanan thinks she won. I think people still have a [b.s.] factor– and that means she survived even as she met the low expectations she’s created. McCain gained nothing; he was the loser — in the first presidential debate, and the vice-presidential one.
—Pajamas Media’s Jennifer Rubin:
So all eyes were trained on the debate. The question going into the contest tonight was simple: Would this be the final blow to a teetering McCain campaign or the beginning of a comeback? It seems that Republicans’ fears were overblown.
It may not have been enough to recalibrate the race, but it certainly was enough to revive her reputation. She was alternately charming, biting, and lawyerly in marshaling her arguments. She chided Biden for looking backward and harping on the Bush administration. She zinged him and Barack Obama for giving up on the surge. She came back with specifics on Afghanistan and dinged Obama for voting for oil breaks in the Bush-Cheney energy bill.
In short, she entirely and completely beat the spread. Her performance, given how poorly she has fared recently, was nothing short of stunning. And Biden knew it.
–My DD’s Jonathan Singer:
Sarah Palin acquitted herself more effectively tonight than she did with Katie Couric. The problem is that this wasn’t enough. Despite the talk from some that the bar Palin had to top was well underground, Palin had to not only deliver a performance free of gaffes (and it’s not clear to me that she even did this — embracing Dick Cheney and mistaking the top General in Afghanistan with a Civil War-era General were not particularly smooth), she had to seem credible as Vice President. She had to have gravitas.
But after an hour and a half of going up against Joe Biden, at least the second half of which she appeared flat on her feet and unable to conjure up all of her empty talking points, she did not come off as Vice Presidential. She sounded like a moderately effective surrogate — a little better than a Carly Fiorina, not as good as a Mitt Romney — but not as an able partner to John McCain, and certainly not as one who could step in as President should God forbid anything happen to McCain.
In this regard, this was not a successful debate for the McCain-Palin ticket. While it may have staved off the hemorrhaging of support for the Republicans, it did little to nothing to swing the momentum back away from the Obama-Biden ticket.
My DD also posts this You Tube of a Biden moment that will likely be replayed. Will it resonate?
She was calm, commanding and articulate. She repeatedly knifed Biden with a smile and showed why she is one of the most effective communicators in American politics. I’ve been watching Presidential debates since 1960, and I can’t recall a more one-sided matchup than the first 30 minutes of tonight’s debate. It was all Sarah Palin.
After that it equalized a bit, and by the last half-hour I’d guess that television sets were turning off across America. But there is no doubt who prevailed in tonight’s encounter: the Sarah Palin we loved at the convention is back. In fact, she was markedly better tonight. There were a number of good moments. One of my favorites was her “shout out” to her sister’s third grade class back in Alaska, who got extra credit for watching the debate. This was one of many reminders that, to the average television viewer, Palin is one of “us” and not one of “them.”
Given Governor Palin’s performance, Biden had an impossible assignment. He made things worse with his inappropriate grins and grimaces while Palin was speaking, much like Al Gore in 2000, only worse. Palin, in contrast, kept a steady demeanor while Biden was taking shots at her, like a pro. Throughout, she commanded the stage and displayed more poise and confidence than her opponent.
I have to say that both were very very good. On balance, Palin wins simply because she just made everyone who said she was a shallow idiot look like fools. Yes she gave some flubbed answers early on in her first time in the national media spotlight, but she also got asked questions she shouldn’t have been expected to have deep answers on. She is obviously a leader of substance.
–Americablog’s John Aravosis has a SUPERB MUST READ roundup of print and broadcast media reactions. REQUIRED READING.
—James Fallows doesn’t think the debate will fundamentally change the race. Here’s how he thinks both candidates did:
# Palin: “Beat expectations.” In every single answer, she was obviously trying to fit the talking points she had learned to the air time she had to fill, knowing she could do so with impunity from the moderator. But she did it with spunk and without any of the poleaxed moments she had displayed in previous questions. The worst holes in her answers – above all, about the Vice President’s role, also either mishearing or ignoring the question about her “Achilles heel” – were concealed in ways they haven’t been before.
# Biden: No mistakes. This is a bigger deal than it seems, since Biden could easily have seemed bullying, condescending, chauvinistic, or whatever. He didn’t. And while he was woolly-sounding in the beginning, he was commanding and authoritative – from his side’s perspective – on issues of foreign policy and constitutional balance. And to all appearances sincere in his choking-up near the end when talking about having a child in peril. Overall, don’t see how he could have balanced all the conflicting pressures on him much better.
Lest anyone think Luntz cooks these things, his presidential debate FG [focus group] was basically a wash tilting slightly towards Obama and his FG for C-SPAN shortly after Palin was picked was decidedly chilly towards her.
The electoral math is sufficiently unforgiving that I can’t quite believe this is a gamechanger, but clearly she did as well as anyone could have hoped. Clutch.
Many people will analyze this debate by asking whether Sarah Palin outdid her previous disastrous interview performances, and hence proved she just might have the mettle to be a Vice President, after all.
That’s not a wholly irrelevant question. But a better way to decide who “won” tonight is this: Which Veep candidate most forcefully made the case against the opposing presidential candidate?
By that standard, the winner by that measure was unquestionably Joe Biden. He made a far stronger case against John McCain than Sarah Palin did against Barack Obama. It wasn’t even close.
—Political Scientist Dr. Steven Taylor:
Some first impressions:
* Palin stopped the bleeding. This was better than any of her interviews.
* She clearly is better if she can provide a rehearsed answer than when she has to talk off the cuff.
* I don’t think this debate will affect the polls much.
* Biden was stronger later in the debate.Like the debate last Friday, I don’t see a clear winner. The lack of clear winner gives the debate to Palin.
Joe Biden was about average tonight, hitting the talking points in a way that was far from seamless while Sarah Palin was worse than most, making some attempts like “Say it ain’t so, Joe” at delivering canned lines that made me cringe. She was by no means awful but she struck me as someone obviously looking for her mark. She struck me as rather corny, if not goofy, at times whereas Biden struck me as much more bland than usual. At the same time, though, she didn’t come across as a nitwit.
….Overall, if this were a collegiate debate scored on points by trained judges, Biden was the winner. Then again, if that were the case, Al Gore would have won the first debate in 2000. We’ll see how the American people view it over the next couple of days.
This was not a breakthrough debate for either candidate, but both of them did pretty well. Biden was emotional while Palin was able to filibuster and repeat talking points without being pressured by Gwen Ifill. I suppose the mau-mauing worked. I felt like I was watching George Bush with lipstick, the same on message mean spirited digs masked by a genteel tone of voice.
I’m curious to see what the polls say. Probably a slight nod to Biden, but not by a lot. All in all, a debate like this doesn’t really matter; Palin didn’t destroy McCain’s chances, and I think that’s what a lot of Republicans were worried about.
—The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein:
The consensus from the debate seems to be that while Sarah Palin exceeded the exceedingly low expectations set for her, Joe Biden won the night. The word comes from former members of the Bush administration and even John McCain’s former press secretary.
Read it in full for details.
The McCain campaign did not opt, in the end, for Sarah Barracuda. They wanted Palin scripted, and in some cases she seemed to have her lines literally memorized. This was the more risk-averse choice, but provided for few genuine moments of spontaneity.
It also allowed Joe Biden to get a lot of free shots in at John McCain, several of which were quite effective. Perhaps, in the end, this wasn’t as difficult a debate for Biden to prepare for as it had been made out to be. Hammer McCain, knowing that Palin would have to go off-script to defend him. It also allowed Biden to be the more emotive candidate.
… I suspect that the Sarah Palin chapter of the campaign is largely over. She may draw large crowds in her next couple of public appearances; it’s also not out of the question that the media will sour on her performance in the forthcoming days, once it’s been removed somewhat from her safety net of low expectations. But after that, she may largely fade into the background, and if she is making news, it may not be for reasons the McCain campaign likes.
At the end of the day, this is another missed opportunity for the McCain campaign, a fact which is only betrayed by conservative commentators’ hyperbolic attempts to spin to the contrary. But McCain may well have been willing to take that settlement ahead of time, figuring they had more to lose tonight than to gain.
Trying. To keep. Blood pressure. Down. Musn’t DIE. Watching the lady lie about literally everything. Oh, she has some complete sentences alright. “Congratulations.” You’re still not a human though! STILL NOT THERE! Oh and Joe — less numbers! We realize numbers are your defense mechanism whenever you really want to say “SHUT THE HELL UP FRAUDBOT,” but still.
Republican Sarah Palin flicks off Democrat Joe Biden’s talking points.
The moose hunter bags another one.
Biden has veered off the facts into Daily Kos land. Biden saying Republican John McCain was wrong on the war.
Two words: The Surge.
Palin has sliced this guy bad. She shows he knows nothing about energy, the economy and the war. Every answer he has is Bush, Bush, Bush.
He’s scripted. She’s not.
Biden’s lying. She’s not.
I don’t know if she can still save McCain, but she got game.
Line of the night: Doggone it, Joe.
The question of who won this debate can be answered different ways, depending on how you define winning. I predict that tonight’s debate will mean a bump in the polls for McCain/Palin, thus I conclude that Sarah Palin is the winner here. She shelled out one heck of a performance. That’s what people will remember. The other thing people will remember is how many times Joe Biden made mistakes, and was just wrong on the facts. Several things he said tonight will hurt his credibility.
Joe Biden, father, class act, presidential, who clearly won the debate…The debate last night was a proud moment for O-Biden, as lunch bucket Joe delivered for the team and for Democrats across the country.
The biggest mistake Palin made is that she put herself above her ticket. Not once did she make the case against Barack Obama. She was too busy making the case she wasn’t the disaster Katie Couric revealed she was, which, no doubt, was a relief to the base. I guess beyond anything else she saved herself for 2012. You think I’m kidding?
But regardless of who won or lost, a vice-presidential debate doesn’t matter unless it produces a major gaffe. This one didn’t. So, people will vote on the person at the top of the ticket, and by that criterion, even if you think Palin won the debate, it’s hard to see how she changed the race much. That’s not great news for John McCain. Both national and state polls are going in the wrong direction for him.
….Republicans are no doubt thrilled with the performance, and that matters. The McCain team says they’ve surpassed Bush’s performance in 2004 in the number of volunteers making phone calls and knocking on doors. Palin’s performance will keep them dialing and knocking. She’s also helped her future prospects in the party, too. Partisans could excuse her bad interviews as press bias, but anyone who wants a future as a national politician in 2012 or beyond needs to perform in a debate.
But all of this takes McCain only so far. His campaign has been bleeding for reasons other than Sarah Palin. The issue of the moment is the economy, and that’s Obama’s issue….
Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were talking to two different Americas Thursday night. Actually, that’s unfair to Joe Biden; he was trying to talk to everyone. I can say for certain, though, that Sarah Palin was talking to — and winking at — her own private Idaho, and for long stretches of the debate, it was an unnerving experience.
… There were two key moments for me when Sarah Palin blew it badly. One was substantive, one was symbolic. The substantive was her bizarre statement about being happy that Dick Cheney had expanded the powers of the vice-presidency, and wanting to expand the powers more. I think that’s what she said, it was one of many moments I didn’t entirely understand her point, but I got her overall meaning. Biden came back with a decisive: “Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president in American history,” and he defended the existing limits on vice-presidential power. Point: Biden. Big time.
The symbolic moment Palin flubbed was subjective, of course. But I instant-messaged a friend that she lost the debate when Biden choked up over losing his wife and child in a car accident in which his sons were critically injured — and she went straight back into “John McCain is a maverick.” I truly expected her to express human sympathy with Biden, and her failure to do so showed me something deeply wrong with her. But maybe that’s just me.
Sarah is no Dan Quayle. And she is no Tina Fey cartoon. And she is no drooling moron.
Democrats set the debate up better than we ever could have. If you accuse someone of being a drooling boob, you darn well better make sure they are one. Palin showed up and made all those who ridiculed her look like idiots. Case in point — Keith Olbermann. I was flipping around so I just caught bits and pieces of the post debate here and there. On MSNBC, Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell said Palin was rehearsed. Matthews said the danger with these debates is that people say rehearsed lines and they can be mistaken for intelligence. Sounds a bit like good ole Teleprompter Boy to me. But Teleprompter Boy doesn’t even rehearse the lines. He has to read them.
Olbermann came on looking like someone killed his dog and said Palin didn’t answer the questions. Then he read a list of things he said she got wrong. He didn’t say anything about all the things Biden got wrong. I had to turn the channel because I can’t take but so much of Olby, but I was tempted to continue watching because he looked like he was going to cry.
Stylistically, both candidates played to their strengths. Biden was knowledgeable and statesman like, delivering responses with authority. Palin was folksy and plain spoken, casting her responses in terms that the middle class could identify with.
Unsurprisingly, in the spin room after the debate both camps claimed victory. Rudy Giuliani declared that Palin hit a “home run.” Fred Thompson concurred, adding that after tonight Palin’s detractors should be “ashamed of themselves.”
Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Biden turned in the most effective line of the night by ticking off the ways in which John McCain was the same as George W. Bush, adding that Palin failed to offer a single difference between McCain and Bush in response. Linda Douglass gave Palin points for her performance skills but said that Biden was “hands down the winner on substance.”
Strip away the spin from both sides, however, and this much is true: Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign had an awful lot riding on tonight’s debate. After suffering through a bad couple of weeks, a disastrous performance by Palin tonight could have caused the bottom to fall out. The McCain campaign can at least leave St. Louis tonight satisfied in knowing that didn’t happen, and that they live to fight another day.
I’ll write a bit more when I’ve had time to digest, but for now, Palin turned in a genuinely competent performance, and Biden turned in a superlative one. His performance tonight was the best I’ve seen from any candidate in this election, including the primaries. Just a superb job. I’m a bad barometer for middle America, but tonight seemed a clear win for him and his ticket.
With expectations so low for Gov. Sarah Palin, she did better than many probably thought she could. But in the second half of the debate, it was as if she ran out of things to say. Her performance was very uneven, particularly on foreign policy.
In contrast, Sen. Joe Biden got stronger as the debate went on. He showed he has the best debating skills on either ticket. He was particularly strong in defending Sen. Barack Obama and strapping Sen. John McCain tightly to President Bush. Biden handily won this debate.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.