Was Biden too focused on McCain’s past votes? Was Palin arrogant in saying she wouldn’t follow the debate guidelines and not always answering the questions asked? Was Biden too professorial while Palin was too folksy? Which was stretching the truth too much? What would you liked to have heard that you didn’t? What did you hear that you didn’t like?
If the VP were to become President, to redirect what one of the pundits said after the debate, which would you rather have making the decision in the War Room with generals on shooting down a plane that might start a war? Which do you trust with your money, job, health care and all the rest?
Have at it!
[Duplicate comment deleted. Please don’t double post! – ed.]
Obviously, by not addressing me directly, you are a coward. By appealing to a higher power to fix everything, rather than engaging in a dialog, you show yourself to be afraid of those you can not control.
Thank you for showing who you are, including being a sycophant.
I tried to watch it, but when Palin managed to mention soccer moms during the opening question on the economy I realized there was no reason to watch it at all.
I read the transcript.
I’d like my ten minutes back, please.
Next!
“Palin clearly “won” by exceeding expectations” Who set those expectations?
On the nuclear thing, we wondered when you lib’s would catch on. It was so much fun watching you get all red in the face every time you heard nuculear.
Gov Palin clearly; love her or hate her she is the outsider.
“Nucular” was sadly a staged “I’m with stupid” moment. Perhaps Uncle D. is right, and they want to lose.
My cringe worthy event was when Palin said “We have to take the greed and corruption out of Wall Street.”
‘scue me, isn’t that the WHOLE F*CKING POINT OF WALL STREET? That’s why our lack of regulation has us IN this mess stoopid.
I think as far as answering questions well and building a strong case for their respective candidates, Biden won. I felt like Palin’s answers veered off course too often, she tried way too hard to appeal to “Joe sixpack” and other nonsense, and she just plain didn’t answer some of the questions. It sounded like a high-school level speech, like she practiced what to say for a week before the debate and went out there and recited answers and made sure to throw in a lot of five dollar words like “maverick.” Biden seemed longwinded at times, but seemed like he gave more grounded answers. I honestly don’t know if about 90% of the facts he gave were true, but I really hope they were for we’re at a dead end here.
I listened to the debate while doing facing opposite the TV (doing math problems), and some of the few times I turned around she was giving some coy/cute little look to the camera as if to say (and I really don’t want to sound tasteless, but it’s unavoidable) “hey cutie, dontcha wanna vote fer little ole me?”
One last point: I hate the fact that Palin is being cheered on for not screwing up. Granted, she reached national spotlight 5 weeks ago, so of course she won’t generally do well on nationally televised interviews. But it seems like she gets slanted grading against a completely useless former self (in the context of debates), while Biden needs an excellent performance just to break even. Biden simply produced a better argument for his candidate, and people are patting Palin on the back for not standing slackjawed for 5 seconds every time she’s asked a question she didn’t study the night before. Are expectations really that low of this candidate?
When George Will says you are not qualified to be Vice President, and you are a Republican — well that is some deep doo-doo you are in.
He’s right of course — strip away the “fem-shield” and pretend she was say, Mitt Rommney, and you would be shocked by that performance. Come on everybody — Sarah Palin is like a loud fart in polite company: everybody knows what it is and where it came from, but they can’t say anything. Picking her as his VP says one of two things about John McCain: 1) He thinks you are stupid and won’t notice that she is an empty sack or 2) He’s stupid and doesn’t realize she is an empty sack. Either way, you lose.
Let me ask you all a question: After watching her, do you think you could actually trust her? Like loan her a hundred bucks and your car for the weekend trust her? I’m sorry — I just get that whole “phony!” reek and know she’d toss you under the bus in a heartbeat if she thought it would help her out.
Biden? Politician his whole life. So what you see is what you get. But, if you gave him $100 to hold for you, you’d get it all back.
#52 we all moderate this blog and that was well within the low standards we use.
I’m personally amused by the nuckular thing since I did not hear that. Curiously nobody seemed to concerned about Biden calling the Bosnians, “Bosniacs.” I like the term Bosniacs, since it is funny, but come on!
Palin is beyond horrible. She had an opportunity to appear like a caring, feeling human right after Biden’s voice cracked while he described losing his wife and daughter and Palin just went back to her attack notes, spouting off more McCain as maverick gibberish and took no notice whatsoever of Biden’s pain. Is Sarah Palin an epic fail? You Betcha!
Agree about the fembot… she is totally a fembot, or a set of animated holographic loops with a voice over. Too bad Biden is only a running mate, not a nominee. Someone probably tried to teach her how to use mimics “correctly” and she did not figure it out yet. Aside from fembotish mimics, whatever she said was either advertisement or nonsense.
forgot to add: Biden was a gentlemen with her. Could have crushed her, but did not.
The problem I have with her is that she does not have her own words, does not have her own opinion, does not know much about big politics. If elected a VP and tried to accomplish anything, she will be ground up into dust by the Washington machine. Biden, on the other hand, knows them all and knows how to deal with them. Palin needs to go back to school!
There is no “winner.” We are all diminished.
If you are going to name drop the Commanding General of Afghanistan, you should at least get his name right. It’s not McClellan, it’s McKieman. Maybe she was too busy winking and misread it on her script.
She was stilted and seemed to have a batch of “talking points” that she was to “interject” when possible.
The maverick thing was getting very old, and I’m glad Biden made a point of dealing with it. She had a few good jabs herself, but for the most part she couldn’t structure her arguments such that you could follow her thinking; not good if you want to convince the populace of your capabilities.
Biden and Obama should physically stop themselves from dealing in the past. Many of their arguments stem from the past eight years — which are fine to start with, but if you’re going to say you’re for change you need to have more than ‘different than before’.
It was interesting to hear Ferraro’s take on things afterwards, on nbc. I have to agree with her assessment, I was actually hoping Palin would surprise me and show she’s that strong woman type we keep hearing is out there. Instead I saw mixed signals and a dependence on others to tell her what she thinks. No “maverick” at all.
She was also very nervous at first, though it cleared away fairly quickly. Understandable, and just as human as Biden choking up a bit talking about the loss of his wife and daughter.
Overall, I’d say a draw from the “pretty vapid” standpoint, and a shade on the Biden side for real content and points made. Neither one really increased their partner’s case, nor screwed it up.
One does have to ask though, would people be more scathing about her performance if she was a he? I suspect so.
I always try to give them all a good chance to convince me of their points, which means I ignore their gender. But I can’t help thinking of her as a slightly annoying Chihuahua, Biden as a German Shepard, Obama as a Great Dane, and McCain as a 12 year old pitbull that keeps biting its own tail.
1. this is NOT a national FAIR debate.
2. Only 2 groups were ALLOWED to debate, and NONE of the other REGISTERED for president candidates. YES there are OTHER candidates.
3. OPEN FORUM..no such thing here.
4. ALL questions were supplied to the candidates, BEFORE the debate. LOTS of practice.. ask any actor.
Answer questions from the moderator?
Gosh darn it Joe, I’m speaking to Joe Six pack sitting around the kitchen table. I may not be what you call a big city Washington insider with years and years of deal making, but I’m talking straight to the American people. I’m not going to answer questions like some politicians and the press want because I’m a reformer.
James Hill — you wonder about Biden’s facts?
Guess you don’t wonder about Palin’s? Oh, right, Ms. Airhead didn’t quote any. However, she did a masterful job of sticking to the same schtick — McCain’s talking points, which were riddled with the same old policies of the last 8 years.
And, aren’t you shitting in you pants when she said that she wants to EXPAND the powers of the VP? Yea, shooting a guy in the face was the worst thing Dick Chicanery has done as VP. Way to go Caribou Barbie.
#80
“My gay friends said they will vote for her…”
It’s weird, she’s unpopular with women and strangely popular with gay men. It’s almost like they want to be her weird cousin at some folksy Alaskan wedding.
#69 – John C. Dvorak
>>I’m personally amused by the nuckular
>>thing since I did not hear that.
I did. And I’ve even heard YOU say it, on the No Agenda podcast with Mr. Curry.
#76 – Jim
>>She was stilted and seemed to have a batch of
>>“talking points” that she was to “interject”
>>when possible.
Yes, other than folksy “Gawwww-leee, I’m jes’ ono a you regler ol’ folks” mini-tirades (which she seemed pretty facile at restating in a variety of ways), that’s all she had were Republican talking points.
The 24/7 debate coaching obviously taught her to string them together more seamlessly than she did with Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson, but that’s all she had were talking points.
And if none of the talking points was relevant to the question asked, tough tits. She’d use them anyway.
Usually she would just answer a question with an answer to a different question, but a few times she actually said “I’m not going to answer that, I’m going to bring it back to energy independence”. And her plan for energy independence didn’t seem to extend beyond “drill drill drill”. Nothing about wind, solar, “nookular”, clean coal, or anything else. Our salvation, according to Palin, comes from drilling in ANWR.
I think Sarah Palin did and excellent job of pretending that she knew what she was talking about.
These debates are very poorly conducted. The moderator should state at the beginning that responses must address the question directly. If not, the moderator should immediately interrupt and go on to the next question. Palin from the onset made canned statements that in no way addressed the question or topic. At the completion of her tirade the moderator should have at least said, ” You failed to answer the question”, and go on to the next question. Eventually, Sarah might then understand and abandon her carefully rehearsed comments. Of course, this would have been bad for her.
#84, Marc,
Best summation yet.
#86, Pierre,
At the completion of her tirade the moderator should have at least said, ” You failed to answer the question”, and go on to the next question.
Absolutely not !!!
The moderator is not there to judge the value of the debater which is exactly what you want her / him to do. The questions and follow-ups were given to both candidates to answer to the best of their ability. If they declined to answer, then it is up to the viewer to judge.
And yes, Palin didn’t answer a lot of questions. Other questions were answered with too much bullcrap. That is why she lost the debate.
She reminded me of some guy selling an old used car or the feeling when Sony comes out with something new, lots of words but no substance.
I have said it two or three times before on this blog.
Obama\Biden are going to win by a landslide or large margin.
O BTW JCD “Bosniacs” is correct!
Mr Mustard lets give JCD a break. He is not running for President so it doesn’t matter how he says nuclear because he will never make any decisions that deal with that type of material.
mccain/palin are great plagiarists
they copy their actual policies from g.w. bush
they copy their campaign rhetoric from obama/biden.
put it together and you have a vacuous, vapid, void. they have nothing new to offer.
Biden got his ass kicked by a girl! (snicker)
I’d love to see John Stewart moderate a debate between Obama and McCain.
Palin is not an idiot, but she is also not worthy of the Vice-Presidency.
BTW:
From the CIA Factbook:
Bosniak 48%, Serb 37.1%, Croat 14.3%, other 0.6% (2000)
note: Bosniak has replaced Muslim as an ethnic term [for Bosnian Ehtnic Muslims] to avoid confusion with the religious term Muslim – an adherent of Islam
They both did well.
A few points:
1) Biden did well on deflecting without lying that he actually thinks McCain is a better choice for pres than Obama.
2) Obama is smart to have Biden set up to hold his hand and not make any decisions unless Biden clears it 1st, if Obama becomes Pres.
3) After watching both debates and seeing all the candidates. The Dems should have chosen Biden as the candidate over Obama.