Day: October 3, 2008

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Morning After Reflections on the VP Debate

I’m had about five and a half hours of sleep and when I woke up, it came to me:  Sarah Palin is like one of those yappy, little dogs with lots of energy that look cute.  Ok, Palin is shrewed, but she, unlike that little dog, is really, really scary.  This is a woman who wants to have more power than Dick Cheney.  From the nonrelease of her tax returns to what appear to be abuses of power both as Mayor and Governor (think Troopergate and the Wasilla Librarian), she would be another Dick Cheney.  Even Kit Bond, a Republican, appeared a little startled last night when asked about her statement about wanting more power.  I hope that the Obama campaign takes that and does an ad contrasting her to Cheney – currently one of the most, if not the most unpopular figures in American politics. 

Dana Milbank has an interesting piece in the Washington Post  this morning.  After discussing her need to show that she could answer questions following her horribly funny Katie Couric interviews, Milbank writes,

On the other hand, it wasn’t exactly a confidence-builder. Palin, in her 90 minutes on the stage Thursday night, left the firm impression that she is indeed ready to lead the nation — with an unnerving mixture of platitudes and cute, folksy phrases that poured from her lips even when they bore no relation to the questions asked.

“Let’s commit ourselves just everyday American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation,” she proposed when asked about the mortgage crisis.

“I want to go back to the energy plan,” she said when asked about the federal bailout plan.

“Let’s commit ourselves just everyday American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation,” she proposed when asked about the mortgage crisis.

“I want to go back to the energy plan,” she said when asked about the federal bailout plan.

Biden grew frustrated. “If you notice, Gwen, the governor did not answer the question.”

Replied Sarah Six-Pack: “I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/02/AR2008100204250.html?hpid=topnews

Pretty scary.

In the New York Times, Adam Nagourney observies:

“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.”

Short of a complete bravura performance that would have been tough for even the most experienced national politician to turn in — or a devastating error by the mistake-prone Mr. Biden, who instead turned in an impressively sharp performance — there might have been little Ms. Palin could have done to help Mr. McCain. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/us/politics/03assess.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Of course, these are two Eastern papers who don’t understand drilling in Alaska.

So I run off to work with two polls.  The Newsvine unscientific poll on MSNBC has Biden winning the debate by 78.2% and InTrade odds are Obama to win the election at 65 to 33.8 for McCain.

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The VP Debate – some initial thoughts

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.

I confess, though, I don’t know what anybody is making of this. I don’t even know what I’m making of it. This is the strangest debate I’ve ever seen. It seems like an interplanetary exchange, with poor Gwen Ifill trying to keep the Enterprise from falling into the wormhole.

That was Gene Robinson in the Washington Post

Pat Buchanan has just dismissed Sarah Palin’s saying she wanted to expand the role of the Vice President.  I agree with Joe Biden that given the example of Dick Chaney – we need to be very frightened.  I’m with Rachel Maddow who thought that Palin was not very coherent and made a couple of mistakes.