Presidential Election Political Smackdown FFA

[uwp]

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[Lake Hills Renter]

[Charles Dean]

Again, she's the gift that keeps on giving:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/0 ... 30752.html

Never actually seen russia. Even though that's her foriegn policy experience. You can't write this kind of comedy!!!

[Charles Dean]

And finally the supreme court clip we've been hearing about:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4493093n

[WestSideBilly]

[Charles Dean]

[rose-colored-coolaid]

VP Debate tonight. Here's my thoughts.

I think this debate was better than the presidential debate. Both participants came out on target and on topic. Who "wins" is going to likely come down to very partisan separations, but I think there are some things we can say about each candidate that are not partisan.

1) Physical presence: Both candidates did fine in this dimension, but Palin did better. She has good posture, smiles while she's talking, and did a very good job of speaking to the camera (the viewers). Biden facial expression was generally more serious, which is less appealing, and at times he was speaking to the moderator instead of the viewers.

2) Vocal presence: Again, both candidates did fine. Biden spoke is smooth, easy to understand bytes with appropriate emotion. Palin was clear, but often rushed. Especially when she seemed to be on the verge of losing her talking point, she would poor on the words...occasionally I felt like I was drowning under a downpour of verbage.

3) Content: Very different, and most will interpret this via their party tinted glasses. Palin was at her best when speaking of regular people; this was to be expected. Surprisingly, Biden was also quite compelling about the plight of regular Americans. When forced to answer actual questions, each candidate quickly shifted to their talking points. This format helped Palin the most in that regard, as she was able to stick to what was versed. That said, Biden produced more "facts" or at least details than Palin. If you like concrete answers, Biden had better content as Palin stuck to platitudes and generalities per usual. It's difficult during a debate to tell the veracity of an argument, so I'll be waiting for the fact-checkers to come along tomorrow. I know some of what they said was false, as a few of the exchanges midway through the debate involved each participant telling their opponent that they were confused...it's just a question of who was accurate.

4) Wildcards: These would be the things that might not be big, but could steer peoples opinions. When talking about raising his two children, Biden chocked up momentarily, which gave the impression of being overcome by emotion. If this gets picked up on and goes around YouTube, it could be a powerful moment of "feeling the middle class' pain". Palin attempted to use some humor (specifically when she "didn't know what the VP does"). I didn't find her jokes funny, but some might. Perhaps some people might just like the fact she tried. That could help her. Unclear to me, but with the public you never know.

5) Palin wasn't awful but she wasn't awesome either: This deserves its own mention, because we've seen so many cringe inducing clips by her lately. Some commentators have suggested that just by being mediocre, she would surpass expectations and thus "win" the debate. I'm not convinced. The problem she had, is that Biden never gave her an opportunity for people to feel sorry for her. He called out McCain on several occasions, but almost never referenced her except to respond to her previous statements. The combination of these factors I think might actually be a reset on the Palin pity party. If she keeps it together the rest of the way, she won't be pitied but people will sort of remember how bad it was (on YouTube of course). If she struggles, she'll need to rebuild that outcry of sympathy.

6) My soapbox: I just have to bring this up because it is (in my mind) one of the most important issues of this election, and it's something the democrats need to harp on. Bush/Cheney have systematically destroyed the constitution, and Palin today said she thought the VP had more power than anyone in that position currently was exercising. Biden's response was exactly correct, and hers was absolutely wrong, and if there are any statements which link the failures of Bush/Cheney with likely failures of McCain/Palin it was this one. Maybe I'm exaggerating or belaboring this point too much, but it's disregard and misunderstanding of our constitution, like that statement, that has eroded civil liberties the last eight years.

[Charles Dean]

I agree almost completely with you rose. The debate didn't end up being the gaffe-fest that it was touted to be.

Your point about the VP being part of the exec branch was spot on. That she says the bush answer, he just goes right to the constitution. Much much better. However, most people don't know or understand all of Cheney's legal wrangling, so I think that question will likely not make a big difference.

I thought they both did well. Biden of course did better on foreign policy, especially on everything about Israel. I think she did a better job of connecting with people, which was also expected.

The best earmark of who won the debate I think is in the polls and studies from undecided voters, so I'll be interested to see how those polls went.

[Charles Dean]

Here's actually the CNN post-debate report, which is pretty in line with what you said rose:http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/02/poll-biden-wins-debate-palin-exceeds-expectations/

I will say though, the most interesting part of this story in particular is this quote:

"Both candidates exceeded expectations — 84 percent of the people polled said Palin did a better job than they expected, while 64 percent said Biden also exceeded expectations.

But on the question of the candidates' qualifications to assume the presidency, 87 percent of the people polled said Biden is qualified while only 42 percent said Palin is qualified."

That's an enormous gap. It's possible that the damage done from her interviews in the last couple of weeks may be irrepairable.

[WestSideBilly]

Rose, as usual, excellent assessment.

I'm having a tough time scoring it because my expectations were so low. Biden mostly kept his foot out of his mouth, didn't patronize Palin, and didn't get too professorial. Palin did a great job reconnecting with her fan base (rural conservatives?), and her presence was excellent. She didn't have a "did she just say that?" moment like she did with Katie Couric (repeatedly).

Few adders:

First, a couple times early on I found myself thinking "Joe, stop talking..." The early question about the bailout bill, he answered the question in about 45 seconds (referencing Obama's 4 points) but rambled on for another 30 seconds or so. Palin rambles on fairly often without adding any substance, and Biden probably could have scored some efficiency points.

Second, I thought both of them showed horrible debate ethic. Obama and McCain danced around questions, but a couple times both Biden and Palin flat out ignored the question and went back to the previous question. Gwen Ifill did a great job humoring them and letting them get their punches in. This probably doesn't mean much to the average voter, but it somewhat irritated me.

Third, it was painfully clear that Palin has a poor grasp on how government works. In a race with 3 senators, she showed her "outsider" nature. I don't know that this hurts her (probably helps her in some eyes), but Biden got a few shots in when Palin used a talking point that is only useful if the listener doesn't understand how government works.

- not surprisingly there were a fair number of outright mistruths, some misquotings, etc.

Oddity - neither one of them can pronounce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both were "Ack"ing it and dropping a syllable - Palin said "Ack-mah-nee-jad" and Biden said "Ack-maad-nee-jad".

Point of irritation: Palin's answer about gay rights/marriage sorta pissed me off. Biden and Ifill let her get away with it, too. My impression is that Palin pretty clearly opposes gay rights of any sort, but she avoided saying that by pulling out the 'marriage is one man and one woman' card; then when pressed about allowing full rights to gay civil unions, she basically said she was open minded but that marriage would always be one man one woman.

[uwp]

Palin exceeded expectations only because she had managed to lower them to the floor in the preceding two weeks. As long as she could form coherent sentences, this was going to be a net positive for her.

Overall, I felt Biden destroyed her in substance, and was pretty personable (for once, a politician's tears actually seemed real). Palin's only saving grace was that the moderator and Biden let her get away with redirecting the questions. It wasn't even a smooth transition of, "You asked me this, but here is how it relates to this," but instead she would just flat out say, "You know, I'm going to talk about taxes here" while acknowledging it had nothing to do with the question.

I really think the whole "Moderator is writing a book about Obama" thing tied the moderator's hands, so she just let Palin run with whatever Palin wanted. The layout of the debate was already going to let Palin say things relatively unopposed, and a scared moderator just gave Palin more free reign to read of her cue cards without fear of a followup question that would actually demonstrate knowledge rather than memory.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[Charles Dean]

So does McCain think that Bush should veto the bill he just voted for?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i0su1roQLI

[rose-colored-coolaid]