October 3, 2008
Biden, Palin Spar In VP Debate
Anyone looking for a train wreck at last night's Vice Presidential debate came away disappointed. Democrat Sen. Joe Biden didn't ramble too badly and Republican Gov. Sarah Palin exceeded expectations by solidly, if uninspiringly, standing her ground. Gone was the Palin who looked in over her head in interviews with Katie Couric and, instead, was one who had her answers well-prepared answers and deftly dodged the questions she didn't want to answer, saying at one point, "And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear..."
Palin's broadcast journalism and beauty pageant experience also came to good use, as she addressed the camera — and by extension viewers at home — directly, often winking at the camera and turning up the folksy charm that sent her Q ratings soaring after John McCain made her his VP pick. It looked as though Biden initially would let Palin frame the debate with style over substance. But he took her measure for the first ten minutes and came back, attacking McCain's positions on everything from the Iraq war to offshore oil drilling.
Soon, the candidate's game plans became evident. Palin worked feverishly to frame McCain as a "maverick," an agent of change for voters. Anyone who had "maverick" in their drinking games was blitzed beyond recognition. Biden bit into McCain's record like a soft chew toy, refuting Palin's arguments at every turn. What surprised us was that, by comparison, Palin didn't attack Obama's record (or lack thereof) with the same fervor, nor did she try to attack Biden as a Beltway mainstay. The two candidates took no shots at each other.
Toward the end of the debate, Biden became emotional when recounting the car accident that claimed the life of his first wife. It could have been a Hillary moment or reminiscent of Edmund Muskie. CNN indicated that undecideds were swayed heavily by it. Overall, it was a spirited debate that did not make John McCain look good heading into next week's debate with Obama in Nashville.
The lowered expectations helped Palin. ABC7's Andy Shaw practically gave the debate to Palin, while GOP strategist Todd Harris, who worked for McCain during his 2000 Presidential run, said that Palin's performance will "stop the bleeding. But this alone won't change the trend line, particularly in some battleground states."
In case you missed it, or if you feel like watching it again, here's the complete debate.
Chuck Sudo also contributed to this post.
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MG,
An obvious and shameless attempt at increasing traffic and clicks to the site by posting something unrelated to Chicago. I bet it works.
I suppose as the editor, your charge is clicks, not content...no?
Let the Palin bashing begin.
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So sometimes we look past our local view and post on news and events that other readers might think matter.
I suppose as a reader of the site, your charge is flaming posts if they don't fall under the strict mission of Chicagoist being a "site about Chicago..." no?
Boo hoo, Chris. Get over it.
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Chris is right. The U.S Presdential election is unrealted to Chicago. Man I can't wait to kick the small town dust off my boots.
So looks like Palin managed to hide behind "Support or Troops" And America is Great and of course stealing one liners from Reagan's rotten corps, but no substance what so ever.
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Chuck, no one is talking about this whole "election" thing. It doesn't affect Chicago at all. Please stop covering it. Also, no more stories about restaurants I have not eaten in or serve cuisine I do not care for. I will send you a list.
Joe Biden had facts, experience and eloquence. Palin was trying to skate on charm and talking points. She tried to work the ref with the whole "I'm not going to answer the way you or the moderator" bit, also, not answering questions put to her at all. My favorite moment was when asked about bringing parties together her response was to launch into a scripted partisan attack. Really, even if she was as liberal as the day is long, she's just out of her depth.
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I am getting sick and tired of people griping about posts that they claim are 'unrelated' to Chicago.
How is this unrelated to Chicago? Is the outcome of the election not going to affect you in any way?
And I hope the editors and contributors to Chicagoist stop apologizing and explaining for posting political things.
I think it's pertinent to find out what my fellow Chicagoans are thinking about the election. I like going to different city's websites to see what people from around the country are saying about the debates and election process.
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Biden was well in command of the facts, actually attempting to answer the questions with a degree of nuance, and although Palin didn't implode (a high standard by which to judge a perforamnce indeed) she just kept repeating the same vapid talking points all night long. I really hated when she referred to Biden's wife, a teacher, as "getting her reward in heaven"--that sickened me. Like, umm, she'll get her reward in heaven because we sure as hell ain't gonna pay teachers a decent wage in THIS LIFE.
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I still can't believe she winked at the camera.
And how exactly do you win a debate when you don't directly answer a single fucking question?
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Palin clearly had about a dozen 2 minute stump speeches memorized, and she simply stated whichever one was closest to the question asked. When she didn't have one that fit, that's when she let Ifill know she was going to give an answer to a question that wasn't asked. And damn, how many times did she fall back on the "he's a mavrick/we're a team of mavricks" as a rebuttal. Saying it doesn't make it true... She had no cringe-worthy stumbles like she did in the interviews with Couric or Gibson, but the viewers still recognized how little content there actually was to her comments. I was actually plesently surprised at the snap polls after the debate, because I thought she'd be much better received than she was.
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Those who took a shot whenever Palin said "maverick" last night are probably still passed out.
I have many bet peeves about Palin from last night, but the most annoying one was when she attributed the "city on the hill" reference to Reagan. It was John Winthrop on the deck of the Mayflower and his quote was more of a reference to religion, not democracy.
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She annoyed me right from the start, when she came charging onto the stage and tried to declare her alpha dog status by cackling "Can I call ya Joe?"
And of course, her verbal meanderings when she gives her non-answers to questions are beyond frustrating.
Yeah..that winking, uggh, along with her little north country colloquialisms and overuse of the word Maverick. Maverick has now lost all meaning and relevancy.
Anyone see Pat Buchanan creaming his jeans over her performance? I mean...did he and I watch the same debate?
All I can say is, well...I can say a lot more but I'm so tired of this(I've been going back and forth with a republican friend since last night)...I just hope that very soon we shall have heard the last of her.
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I think Reagan's Rotten Corps [sic] is going to be the name of my next band.
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This is a free country (still), and the editors here are free to use this space as they wish. What makes this site great, however, is its Chicago-focus. Left wing political blogs are a dime-a-dozen.
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So the people who did not support Palin before the debate, still do not support Palin after the debate...stop the presses!!!
The insight here would make a think tank jealous.
Hey, Chicagoist...a cow tipped over in Iowa last night...when will you be posting that story?
ZING!
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To the people whining about election stories being posted here on Chicagoist, I'd like to point out a few things.
1.) The election coverage does affect Chicago (and every other city in the US)
2.) Nobody is forcing you to read the story
3.) Nobody is forcing you to comment on the story either, unless you have some sort of disorder that just makes you whine about every little thing you have the ability to.
4.) Get over yourselves.
But in better news, I scored a BINGO on card 4 during the debate last night! WOOT!
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I'm really surprised the majority of people think she did well--or held her own--in the debate last night. It truly reflects the lowered expectations placed on her over the past few weeks. Rather than judging whether she is fit to lead this country, her party seems happy if she can just make it through an hour without saying something stupid. Short of a complete meltdown, I think people were going to let her slide with little critcism. This is Quayle all over again.
As Tankboy pointed out, she didn't answer a single question asked. Nor did she respond adequately to any of Biden's points. Instead, she launched into unrelated (and well rehearsed) stump speeches with little regard to whether it even matched the issue at hand. Problem is her salt-of-the-earth bullshit and rube-like approach to the whole situation might actually play well in some of the battlegorund states. What a shame.
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I think Reagan's Rotten Corps [sic] is going to be the name of my next band.
You do that and I'm going to write a song called "Rotten to the Corpse!"
Oh and I for one am very happy to see that they finally took my advice and dug up a dead civil war general, re-animated what's left of him and put him in charge of the war in Afghanistan.
You go McClellan!
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One man's "spar" is another man's "one-sided smackdown."
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One man's "spar" is another man's "one-sided smackdown."
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My favorite line of Palin's:
And that's why Tillerson at Exxon and Mulva at ConocoPhillips , bless their hearts, they're doing what they need to do, as corporate CEOs,..
Bless their hearts???? Two of the guys gouging America??? Seriously, that folksy, mom-next-door crap can only go so far.
You betcha, gosh darnit...
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mss2400: we're not trying to be a "left-wing political blog;" Lord knows there's enough of those and right-wing blogs out there. We're not trying to sway anyone; just give the facts.
But this does fall under the banner of being a newsworthy story in which our readers have a vested interest (that is, unless you don't plan on voting at all next month).
Would you ask the local television network affiliates to not cover or analyze the debate for the same reason? Or accuse them of being "left-wing" if they did? Maybe you, Chris_60614 and others of the same mind wished we didn't run Marcus's interview with Bob Schieffer for the same reason.
Please trust us. We know full well that it's the local coverage that readers come here for. That doesn't mean we have to be myopic to what's going on around us, and we'll never weigh in on these stories at the expense of the site's mission statement.
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I just want to give a shout out to the third grade class that gets extra credit for reading this blog.
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"As Tankboy pointed out, she didn't answer a single question asked"
So if I come up with ONE question she answered, then this point is 100% inaccurate...right?
Jesus, it was an hour and a half debate. She answered questions...maybe not like you wanted or Joey Boy wanted, or the moderator wanted.
If you are so biased to say something like "she didn't answer a single question" then I question whether you even watched the debate, or only caught the biased sound bites afterwards.
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Someone should tell Biden there is no crying in politics. All the Obama lovers went apeshit when Hillary did it but it's perfectly ok for Biden to do it. Palin actually did very well thats hard for many to admit but it's the VP debate for god sake Hopefully neither of these two does anything but attend overseas funerals and maybe chair the new presidents blue ribbon commission on something no one cares about.
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If you are so biased to say something like "she didn't answer a single question" then I question whether you even watched the debate, or only caught the biased sound bites afterward.
Nope, watched the whole thing, and still don't think she directly answered the questions posed to her.
O.K., O.K., she DID answer the gay marriage question ... but that was it.
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When Clinton cried, it was her response to a question on "how she manages to keep going in her campaign." Don't blame her.
Biden cried thinking about his dead wife, daughter and the fact that his boys almost didn't make it.
Sometimes human beings get caught up in the moment. I thought it was bullshit when some of the pro Obama/anti Clinton crowd piled on.
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Her non-answers were insulting. So she answered a few? The ones that lined up nicely with the talking points she memorized beforehand? slow clap
That a candidate for the vp in this country has to have the bar set that low is pathetic. For my money though the most grating part of the debate her Ms. Perky McSmalltown act. It's like a beauty queen and a member of Hee Haw's All-Jug Band got together and had a kid.
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Shoddy writeup. How can you say Palin stood her ground when you acknowledge she dodged plenty of questions and even quoted the "And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear..." bit? Palin was indeed a train wreck, it's just that weeks of keeping her out of the public and three crap interviews had left the public at large anticipating something on the scale of the Hindenberg disaster.
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My response that "she didn't answer a single question asked" may be a poor use of hyperbole, but my point holds that it is hard to contend she stayed even close to on topic during large parts of the debate (which I watched in full by the way). But come on, "She answered questions...maybe not like you wanted or Joey Boy wanted, or the moderator wanted" is just as ridiculous of a statement. How can you honeslty contend that she wasn't dodging the questions posed? She stuck to talking points, fine. It obvioulsy worked to restore party confidence in her. Lets not give her a bigger pat on the back then she deserves, though.
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Fed,
Hate to challenge your assumptions but everyone who thinks "Palin = your goofy Aunt who's nice but shouldn't be Veep" is voting for Obama. In fact tons of conservatives think so too.
Mary Sunshine wins for best comment. I'm surprised she didn't give her kids at home a shout out or Wasilas hockey team or some shit. "Hi Twig!" "Hi Trampoline!".
BLECH!
I'm folksy ya betcha I'm gonna ram it down yer throat too!
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Ah!
I see posts are changing from "she didn't asnwer shit!" to "Ok Ok...". Maybe too much passion and not enough facts on your parts. No big deal.
The times she may not have answered a question, she actually wanted to address issues that Biden said moments earlier. She is entitled to that.
Did she "side step" questions...of course! That happens in debates. Talk about what you know, B/S on the stuff you don't know.
Biden never addressed Palins point about how Biden voting for the war, claiming Barack is not fit for President, etc etc. Isn't that Biden "not answering" any questions?
Can't we agree that Biden has changed his tone about Obama in the last month and a half. He went from "Obama is not fit for the Presidency" to "He is ready to be President". These are Biden's words, not mine. The only thing changing is that Biden is on his ticket.
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I, too, was frustrated by the fact that she was not answering the questions. She even went so far as to ignore some questions totally because she was desperate to get all of her talking points in.
She's good at this, and her "Joe Six Pack" minions are too dull to pick up on it. They think she's purty and smart too!
Also, Joe Biden did not cry. He got choked up for a second, but her non-response to this was really cold hearted.
If it were any other male, intelligent candidate in her place, saying the same things she did, nobody would be saying that he 'exceded all expectations'. She got a pass from the wingers because she's little ol' Sarah Palin and she's only been doin' this for 5 weeks now!
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You can't call yourself a maverick. It's like calling yourself a genius or declaring your work a breakthrough.
She was trying to engage in moderator neutralization with her non-answers. They started that wednesday with all the non-sense about Ifill's book on Obama. McCain/Palin is so bereft of good ideas the only way they can 'win' is to say the game was rigged. That should make any voter nervous.
I think she was emberassing. Look, there are some very smart conservatives, Palin is not one of them. If she was parroting liberal lines instead of conservative ones it would be just as galling to me.
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She's good at this, and her "Joe Six Pack" minions are too dull to pick up on it. They think she's purty and smart too!
Palin = Neocon's sekrit fantasy mommy/lover...
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It is funny though, her defenders do come across that way: "Hey! Stop making fun of my girlfriend!".
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"I still can't believe she winked at the camera."
O.K I listed to the debate on the radio. DON"T TELL ME SHE WINKED AT AT CAMERA!!! your making that Sh*t up!
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p.s
"How can you say
Palin stood her ground when you acknowledge she dodged plenty of questions and even quoted the "And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear..." bit?"
enneyekay,
see that's what liberals do in the quest to be fair. They bend over backwards to prais lying steaking republicreaturs even if it means making good Sh*t up about them. But you best belive the other side dosen't do that. Which is why they win. And may win this election.
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"Can't we agree that Biden has changed his tone about Obama in the last month and a half. He went from "Obama is not fit for the Presidency" to "He is ready to be President". These are Biden's words, not mine. The only thing changing is that Biden is on his ticket."
I can agree. He changed his mind. Happens from time to time. I initially didn't think Obama had what it took to be President, either.
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" I can agree. He changed his mind. Happens from time to time. I initially didn't think Obama had what it took to be President, either."
Good point, fremo
And that pretty much sums up their biggest rhubarb against Obama. How lame is that?
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Fremo..."Changed his mind"?!?
That's all you got?
Early 2008: Joe Biden DOES NOT think Barack Obama is fit to be President of the United States.
October 2008: Joe Biden "changes his mind" and thinks Obama is fit to be President.
Maybe, just maybe, Biden changed his mind, not based on merit...but maybe because he was offered to be VP on the ticket.
Get your blinders off.
If you don't see how paper thin that is then fair enough.
"Changed his mind"...hilarious.
Ingrid...really? Since the post was about the debate, and we are talking about points in the debate, you think that is all I got?
Get YOUR blinders off.
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Did he change his mind about Obama or did he accept a bribe(the vice presidency).
Biden has become the new Hilary lying about his copter being forced down in Afghan crying at the debate. Next thing you know his wife will be cheating on him.
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Biden = Typical wimpy center-right Democrat who went along with George Bush (and his lies)
Palin = Simply cuckoo bananas, an utter buffoon.
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The whole intro thing really annoyed me. "Can I call you Joe?" WTF, that is his Goddamn name why wouldn't she be able to call him Joe. Maybe this was some kind of inside dig that he was some sort of elitist who needed to be addressed as Joe not His Royal Highness Senator Joseph R. Biden the Second without permission.
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No blinders, Irish. Its called "Changing your mind." I'm sure you make a decision, and see it through to the bitter end time after time. Had McCain/Palin/Whoever change positions, etc - I may change my mind again. Its the pesky "free will" thing. Again, the conservative bullshit that if I don't stand for their side/liberal side, I don't stand for anything at all. To hell with that.
"Did he change his mind about Obama or did he accept a bribe(the vice presidency). Biden has become the new Hilary lying about his copter being forced down in Afghan crying at the debate. Next thing you know his wife will be cheating on him."
Could be. Offered the VP may be what changed his mind - "If he is smart enough to offer me the VP, then he's qualified to be President." Who knows, man? But I think you can pull up "We'll be greeted as Liberators." and "The war will pay for itself" and call that out to. As for him crying at the debate; Whatever you say about his politics, and I am not thrilled by them, he's human and losing his family is a horrible thing to deal with.
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Fremo...nobody is slinging conservative bullshit towards you, quit acting the martyr role here.
Some people took Joe for his word during the primary that he did not think Obama was qualified to be President...I think he said that word for word.
Some people also think that Joe "changed his mind" b/c he was offered the VP spot.
You DON'T see the hypocrisy in that?
You don't?
You really don't?
I'm not asking you to agree with this assertion, but you don't at least "see" the hypocrisy?
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Another thing, Irish, bout changing your mind. When you make a call, say like going to war, and you don't have all the facts or think what you're doing is giving someone authority to wage war as a last option - then they proceed to jump into said war without a firm post-ground plan, I'd say you have some leeway to say "I made a bad call giving authority". Same with Obama - like I said, when he announced, along with the 15 or so other candidates, they all were on equal footing with me. I read all of their platforms (which took a ton of time), listened to the primary debates, read some more, and then decided that Obama could serve as President. I still think he should finish serving his Senate term (McCain and Biden as well), but that's how the process works, and these are the two I have to pick from.
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Martyr:
1. a person who willingly suffers death rather than renounce his or her religion.
2. a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause: a martyr to the cause of social justice.
3. a person who undergoes severe or constant suffering: a martyr to severe headaches.
4. a person who seeks sympathy or attention by feigning or exaggerating pain, deprivation, etc.
Fremo said: "Again, the conservative bullshit that if I don't stand for their side/liberal side, I don't stand for anything at all. To hell with that."
Not playing martyr, Irish. Simply stating that the "wait...you said this, now you said this! Aha! Flip Flopper! You can't be for something then change your mind!" -- crap.
Try this...Biden is running against Obama.