If you are dependent upon the network talking heads to tell you who won the debate tonight between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, then it all depends which network you watched the post-debate commentary on. If you watched it on Fox, then Palin knocked Biden out of the ring. If you watched MSNBC (Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman, Keith Olbermann), Biden cleaned up the floor with Palin. Virtually all of the talking heads came down on the side of the candidate they are pulling for. So much for media commentary. Chris Matthews was especially biting in his mockery of the Alaska governor, proving why he has no business being a moderator.
Of course, Biden showed that he is more experienced on the political stage than Palin. The senator did what he needed to do in two areas; first, he had to avoid making any monumental gaffes, which he is noted for. Second, he had to avoid being condescending to Palin. Biden avoided both those pitfalls. It should be added that Republicans have added up about ten statements Biden made that they are describing as "flat out misstatements".
More importantly, Palin avoided coming across as "the deer in the headlights". She improved noticeably over her interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric. She didn't embarrass herself, and she managed to carry the attack to Biden and Obama.
At the same time, it was clear that she is new to this national debating stage. There were times she appeared to be reading from notes. There were times when she appeared to be giving talking points about the new style she and the other maverick, John McCain, were going to bring to Washington. On other occasions, she steered the question into a different direction. Yet, it appears that she struck a chord with many viewers with her folksy style as opposed to Biden's Inside-the-Beltway-style of speaking.
I suppose a good analogy that comes to mind would be comparing a low-minor league baseball announcer to a major league announcer. Yet, given the fact that Palin is so new to the national stage compared with Biden's three decades of experience, she acquitted herself well. She pretty much stopped the bleeding surrounding her candidacy.
Finally, given my last couple of postings about the Gwen Ifill controversy, I think it is appropriate to give her a tip of the hat as well. Her performance, in my view, was fair, even-handed and professional.
So who won the debate? I have to give the nod to Biden-pending further analysis of the alleged misstatements he may have made. As for Palin. Tina Fey can start looking for a new act. Palin has showed something here. She has been knocked down and gotten back up.
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5 comments:
Wow. I don't disagree. I think that if you had to pick a winner, it goes to Biden. It's hardly a landslide though. Overall, Palin did a good job. The only thing that I saw as a gaffe was her thing about climate change, saying that we don't need to figure out what causes it in order to fix it.
I'd chalk that up just to a careless statement, but she's said the exact same thing before - and, well, frankly, that doesn't make a lick of sense. How can you possibly hope to solve any problem without understanding the cause? Good thing my head already exploded, 'cause it would have done it again.
I'd say it was pretty close. I watched the PBS post-debate coverage and they didn't seem biased. Most of them thought it was pretty close and that Palin did well. I think I agree with them. However, the expectations for Palin were so low that just doing pretty good but not amazing seemed to be enough. I think she loosened up a little more towards the end of the debate, but at the beginning she did seem like she was reading from a script and giving a speech rather than taking part in a debate. I think she also laid the whole "folksy" thing on a bit too thick, with all of her cutesy words and such. It seemed forced and contrived. But to her credit, she did well and didn't implode. She did seem to sort of dodge questions a little more than Biden. I must sound pretty negative, but I really do think she did well, considering the expectations. In terms of substance, I think I agree that Biden won. But it wasn't a knockout.
Unfortunately for the McCain campaign, it wasn't a knockout for Palin, either. At this point, what the McCain campaign needs to get ahead in the polls are big wins in the debates, not these fairly close contests that we've been seeing so far.
Oh and at least Palin looked at Biden, and talked to him! McCain could learn something from her when it comes to that.
Bryan,
I would say you are correct in your analysis.
Gary, here is a fact check summary of last night's debate if you're interested.
Thanks Bryan,
I am not a fact check follower, but it seems to be a decent source. I noted that one of their fact checks quoted AP-which is not always an unbiased source.
It's good that you use it as a resource though.
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