Post-debate
As everyone knows, the overriding issue in this debate, really the only issue, was how Palin would perform: would she overcome her weak showing in recent interviews and the battering she’s taken over it and show herself a competent figure in speaking about national issues? And she did that. And that appearance of competence, combined with her confidence, liveliness, and winning personality (though slightly marred at times by excessive cutsiness), made her a big winner for the night. Whatever you think about her (and my own view from the beginning has been that she should not be a vice presidential candidate), she has saved herself and she’s back in the game, and thus kept her ticket in the game.
Of course she was prepped and was speaking rehearsed talking points. But she came across as a ready, unhesitating, cogent debater. And that was what she had to do.
As for Biden, he came across very well, as a dignified, decent, knowledgeable man. The wacky and disconcerting aspects of his persona were kept well under wraps. Also, his demeanor toward Palin was very good. He looked at her attentively and seriously, responded to her smiles with his own (compare to McCain who seemed not to look back at Obama once during their debate even though Obama often looked at him), and did not seem at all condescending. He was a gentleman. Something Charles Gibson (and John McCain) could learn from.
—end of initial entry—
Scott in Pennsylvania writes:
As someone who won’t be voting for McCain and still thinks Palin is not fully qualified for the presidency, I was glad to see her get through this debate. She did reasonably well. Her summation on preserving freedom and passing it on to the next generation were the best lines of the debate, beautifully delivered.
Biden did well and was a master of policy per se, but “freedom” is a theme the Dems studiously avoid.
The forces of mass psychology that have gathered point to an Obama win. But at least Palin will have this moment to look back on and say that she acquitted herself well.
Gerald M. writes:
Right-wing talk radio pundit Hugh Hewitt is declaring Palin the overwhelming winner, saying (in essence) that her performance was a ten megaton bomb dropped on Biden and the Obama campaign. [LA replies: There’s Hewitt for you, a 1000 percent partisan, often wildly unsound in his judgments.]
A slight exaggeration, I think. True, unlike her recent stumbling interviews, Palin didn’t make any screamingly ignorant assertions. She didn’t sound like a cliche spouting, talking point reciting, robot. And she didn’t babble (at least, not much). But, hardly a stellar performance. Her claim that McCain’s leadership got congressmen to agree to the bailout bill is risible, and the declaration that Ahmadenijad is insane sounds exactly like the, “Saddam is a madman” trope of Bush / Cheney / Limbaugh, circa 2002.
And yet…she did OK. I was impressed by her aggressive insertion of her own record as governor as evidence of her competence, and the implicit contrast her record of achievement presents, compared to both Biden’s and Obama’s record of speechifying. She also refused to let any otherwise damaging point by Biden go unanswered.
Hewitt is saying that the highly regarded pollster, Frank Luntz, recorded a dramatic swing in his debate focus group in favor of McCain-Palin. It will be interesting to see if the polls of the next few days support this, but I’m skeptical. The financial meltdown has hurt McCain, and he will need a great deal of luck to get back in contention.
In other words, the VP debate is a wash, with no effect on who wins the White House. I still think Palin was a brilliant choice by McCain, because she brings much, perhaps all, of the Republican base back into McCain’s tent, and turns what would have been an easy Obama victory into a “damned close run thing” (to quote Wellington on Waterloo).
But close run is not victory. Only McCain, not Palin, can do what needs to be done (reject the bailout bill), and say what needs to be said (that Obama is a member of a white-hating church). Instead, he votes for the government takeover of Wall Street, and refuses to tell whites that Obama’s pastor and mentor is a black racist.
McCain will richly deserve his defeat in November.
A. Zarkov writes:
Palin (like the other candidates) has learned to avoid answering the question, and go into a monologue of talking points. In this respect the “debate” was entirely predictable and boring. In my opinion, Biden did better than Palin, and she still comes across as an airhead. Biden is an airhead too, but being more experienced he hides it better.
I would much prefer to see the candidates ask each other questions and eliminate the moderator altogether. Better yet would be no debate at all. Each candidate should undergo a solo two hour interview from a hostile interrogator. I want to see how a candidate holds up under stress. I want to see how well he can think on this feet when given a complex question. He should demonstrate the ability to remember all the parts of a complex question and answer them. Yes these are high standards; why settle for less?
LA replies:
I must say that that is one of the more unlikely suggestions I’ve heard. Why not require candidates to be interrogated by North Vietnamese prison guards for two hours? Why would any candidate consent to this?
Peter H. writes:
Apparently I’m completely out of touch with the American people. As in the McCain/Obama debate, I thought the Democrat was the clear winner tonight: more relaxed (less frenetic), more specific, more knowledgeable. Again, I thought she was very “boilerplate-ish” This small town folksiness on her part is really wearing thin with me. It’s an insult to small towns to suggest that one can’t come from a small town and yet be well-spoken, not given to using words and phrases like “nucular” (or some variant thereof) or “nothin’” or “side on the people’s side.”
But, according to Frank Luntz on Fox, who spoke to a group of 50 undecideds after the debate, essentially the whole room thought Palin won! Asked if any had changed their minds regarding their choice for President, four indicated that they had, three of them from Obama/Biden to McCain/Palin. A Fox News poll indicated 87% thought Palin won.
I guess I’m an anti-barometer as to what will impress people.
LA replies:
I think “Who won?” is the wrong template for this debate. What this debate was all about was not Palin versus Biden, but Palin versus Palin. Would she show herself to be competent, or not? If yes, then she won; if not, then she lost. She showed herself to be competent, therefore she won.
* * *
Roger Simon at Politico has a distinct take on the debate:
ST. LOUIS—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.
She smiled. She faced the camera. She was warm. She was human. Gosh and golly, she even dropped a bunch of g’s.
“John McCain doesn’t tell one thing to one group and somethin’ else to another,” she said. “Those huge tax breaks aren’t comin’ to those huge multinational corporations.”
She went out of her way to talk in everyday terms, saying things like “I betcha” and “We have a heckuva opportunity to learn” and “Darn right we need tax relief.”
Biden was somber, serious and knowledgeable. And he seemed to think that debates were about facts. He had a ton of them.
Palin made some flubs. Talking about America’s financial crisis, she said, “It’s a toxic mess, really, on Main Street that’s affecting Wall Street.” Isn’t it the other way around? And she also got the name of a general wrong.
But if people thought she was going to look like a dumb bunny for 90 minutes, they were disappointed. She said what she wanted to say, and she was so relaxed she even winked at one point. Really! An actual wink during a national debate, when she said she was going to try to get John McCain to change his mind about not drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Do people care about such stuff? Should all that down-home talk and body language really count? Joe Biden doesn’t think so.
“Facts matter,” Biden said.
Yeah? In politics? Since when?
* * *
A very different take comes from Democratic consultant Robert Shrum. He makes some good points, but his ludicrous one-sidedness shows that consultants should not write columns, since a columnist is supposed so show some tiny measure of fairness and balance of which Shrum is incapable. He denies Palin any worth or dignity at all—he even says, in an amazingly mean-spirited swipe, that she belongs in “Fargo,” the Coen brothers’ evil, nihilistic movie about small town America. Thus he shows that the Democrats’ contempt for ordinary Americans that Obama revealed in his “bitter” remarks is still active, and suggests to me that the Dems are far from having this election sewed up.
Shrum writes:
Sarah Palin has experience being a runner-up—which will come in handy in November. Tonight she barely kept up. In advance, the commenteriat almost unanimously agreed on a false measure of this debate. Judging by “expectation” meant that pundits could conceivably award a faux victory if she was half-coherent and modestly informed after a cram session in Arizona. But voters apply an absolute standard, not a low water mark of expectations: With America facing two wars and economic disaster, Americans ask if a candidate is up to the job.
By any rational assessment, Palin wasn’t tonight—and hasn’t been any time she’s not reading a teleprompter. President Palin—the nuclear button, recession, the health care crisis, global warming (which she doesn’t believe in, as she believes in creationism)—well, it simply doesn’t compute. A part in Fargo, yes—that office in the West Wing, no.
Everybody wondered how Palin would do. At least as important, or more, was that Joe Biden did a superb job. He deftly stopped Palin from distorting Obama’s views. He won the tax cut argument—Democrats usually don’t. He won the health care argument; Palin just gave up. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—answer the questions; she wanted to talk about energy, which she’s supposed to know something about, but she even lost on that . Often she didn’t know or couldn’t say what McCain’s policy is. And on foreign policy, she must have been staring out the window when she sat down with Henry Kissinger. She “loves” Israel but can’t discuss mideast realities in one inch depth. She can’t even articulate basic conditions for the use of nuclear weapons.
Palin relied on topline phrases and had little command of facts. Why, she even memorized the name of the President of Iran. But it was mostly blah, blah, blah. At the end, the Obama-Biden ticket is far ahead on the big issues—and Palin’s a parrot repeating memorized phrases, not a plausible vice-president. Biden called her on it every time.
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 bullshit 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.
* * *
October 3
Hannon writes:
Aside from his obvious and unprofessional-sounding disdain for Palin, I thought Shrum made mostly valid observations. Palin was a success along the lines you suggest—she didn’t blow it—but she was also obviously nervous, especially at first, and seemed to be in no way prepared to hold forth freely and comfortably in this setting. She loosened up gradually which was good and I for one was happy with her use of colloquial language. Whoever coaches her needs to help her break that dreadful speaking habit she has of unnecessarily interjecting “also” at every opportunity.
The awkwardness revealed by both McCain and Palin in the debates in terms of policy distinction and fact handling may not be a detriment for many voters. They still manage to exude the feel of politicians who empathize with regular folks who are tired of the intrusive or destructive policies coming from Washington. Obama-Biden, though comparatively adept and engaging, is the ticket for people who have unremitting faith in government and cannot imagine a reduced Federal role in their lives.
Laura W. writes:
I was distracted during the debate by Biden’s weird face (something about the eyes and skin) and hyper-whitened teeth, which he continuously flashed in a Cheshire Cat grin that seemed derisive of Palin, as if to say to the Saturday Night Live crowd, “Do you believe this?” She came across as likeable and honest. He came across as smarter and had some very strong rhetorical moments. At times, she showed flashes of genuine conviction that made up for her lack of finesse. Again, she has real charm. I did not think she was impressively articulate and her constant references throughout her brief campaign to McCain’s “maverick” status makes her appear a mindless groupie and is extremely tiresome. She stumbled over her words periodically and made awkward transitions from one thought to another. These occurrences don’t destroy her self-confidence, which shows character. She did not strike me as an analytic thinker and, as president or vice president, I suspect she could be easily manipulated by advisors for this reason. My overall impression of her is that she’d make a good congresswoman if her family were in order. [LA replies: That was the most unkindest (truest?) cut of all.]
Both the nominees came across as outrageous populists, trying to outdo each other in who had spent more time worrying about utility bills over the kitchen table. Are Americans this easily bought? I was very disappointed in Palin’s cheerleading for public schools. Conservatism is another brand of liberalism. No mention of vouchers or the need for competition, just higher salaries for public school teachers. That is further proof to me of her feminism. No cause is more sacred to feminists than government-funded k-12 daycare.
LA replies:
“…hyper-whitened teeth, which he continuously flashed in a Cheshire Cat grin…”
But Biden normally smiles much more often with a much larger smile showing much more of his hyper whitened teeth than he did last night. That’s why I found him tolerable, even likable last night and felt he had a good performance. If you’ve ever seen him chairing a committee hearing holding forth to a Republican witness and every few seconds smiling this vast, disconcerting, unreal, inappropriate, condescending smile you’d know what I mean. He gives the impression of a mechanical puppet run by narcissism. He was not at all like that last night and had a decent, respectful demeanor. And I didn’t feel he was being condescending to Palin.
LA writes:
Palin’s closing threnody to freedom seemed to come out of nowhere and shows her as having the same unthinking hyper Republican patriotism of the Bush years. How are we advancing freedom by cultivating a sharia government in Iraq? Yes, Al Qaeda is demonic and we want to destroy them or at least keep them at bay. But Iraqis are Muslims and are not our friends (the Koran tells Muslims, “You shall not be friends with Christians and Jews”), and, moreover, Iraq is not free. Even the neoconservative Freedom House in its list of Free, Unfree, and In-between countries (a list that historically has overstated the advance of freedom) puts Iraq in the Unfree category, as I wrote a couple of months ago. Meanwhile the McCain-Palin ticket supports the continual Muslim immigration into America which is leading America toward steadily becoming a less free, less sovereign, sharia-influenced society.
So it’s the same old Republican-Bush idealistic patriotic rhetoric utterly contradicted by Republicans’ actions. Look at Scott of Powerline explaining how Bush, even now, keeps talking about “You’re either with the terrorists or with us,” while he pursues relations with terror supporting states. Can any honest person think that a McCain administration will be any different? That was the significance of Biden’s high moment in the debate, when he showed how on one key foreign policy point after another, McCain is like Bush. So, why not have a Democratic administration which is at least honest about its desire to appease and deal with terrorists, and then conservatives will oppose that administration, instead of a Republican administration that placates conservatives by pretending to stand for freedom, anti-terrorism, and “Country First” but in reality does the opposite?
Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 02, 2008 10:51 PM | Send