I went into the debate tonight with a few expectations and key points to watch out for. One was to make sure that the moderator didn’t go overboard in her treatment of the candidates, either worrying too much about accusations concerning her book and treating Sarah Palin with kid gloves, or heading overboard in the other direction and doing 90 minutes of gotcha questions. Next, I wondered if Biden would either fall into self-made gaffe traps or be so timid that he essentially gave the night away. The last, of course, was to look for Sarah Palin to either have the long expected deer in the headlights moment or run amok in the other direction and attack Biden to the point of looking shrill.
In the first two questions, the content was good from both candidates, but the initial impression that hit me was that Biden was relaxed, but Senator Palin seemed to be rushing each answer, almost running out of breath trying to get the answers out. I also noted that she said “maverick” twice. You don’t do that if you want to be seen as a maverick. You let other people say it about you. Still, they both had measured responses.
The tax question came up and Palin attempted to try the “Obama raised raised taxes 94 times” and when Biden came back and pointed out that they were procedural votes and McCain had done it hundreds of times, Palin went into a panic. She didn’t answer and began talking about Alaska. She was talking faster and faster at that point. However, Palin hit back with the small business hit and delivered some good lines on that one.
Biden snuck in the ultimate “bridge to nowhere” line at 9:20 pm and that was the first hit.
When they got to the energy debate, Palin scored some big points about taxing the oil companies in her state and Obama voting for the Bush Cheney energy bill.
Gwen Ifill set herself up as not being partisan at 9:27 when she challenged Biden on his difference with Obama on the bankruptcy bill.
At 9:30 pm eastern, Palin talked about energy, she slowed down and got on her game.At that moment, the nervousness started to fade out and she began to deliver some shots and the confidence came out.
When asked about Iraq, Palin had her best answer of the night thus far. She called out Obama for not funding the troops, though Biden shot it down, but she phrased it perfectly. Biden shot back well saying that McCain had voted against a similar amendment.
At 9:50 Palin scores a huge point with the “negotiating with leaders” point. Biden simply didn’t recover from that exchange well and it seemed to focus Palin even more.
By 10:05, Palin started to hit her stride and hit some very good points on foreign policy. It was around the 10:10 point also where Palin finally started to slow down in her speech and seemed to get a bit more confidence.
At 10:12 Palin came out with what will likely be one of the media clips, “There ya go again, talking about the Bush administration.” There weren’t many big shots of the night, but that may have been one of them.
In summary, I think that Palin started out weak in the first half hour, but rallied and put in a very solid performance up until the closing statements. Biden did a bit better there, but over all, I have to give the debate to Palin. She accounted herself very well. If we frame this in terms of the expectations from the Tina Fey clips and the recent interviews, Palin hit a grand slam.
Point to Palin for the race from me. The pundits will tear the individual statements apart for weeks, but Governor Palin not only beat expectations, but beat Biden fair and square.