Palin Stays alive; Biden Exhibits Command of Issues McCain NewsLadder

Special Debate Edition

So Gov. Sarah Palin didn't fall on her face in last night's debate
with Sen. Joseph Biden, her rival for the vice presidency, as so many
thought that she might. And Biden, who should find himself encouraged
by the snap polls that followed, avoided putting his foot in his
mouth, as is occasionally his habit. This morning likely finds both
John McCain and Barack Obama breathing sighs of relief. Around the
liberal and progressive blogosphere, reactions were both cautious and
mixed.

David Corn of Mother Jones heralded the end of "the
Sarah Palin Reality TV show":

For the past few weeks, it's seemed as if Sarah Palin has
been a contestant in the ultimate version of the reality show
America's Toughest Jobs. She passed the first challenge: give a Big
Speech. She did fine on the next one: hit the campaign trail. She
royally screwed up the third challenge: give a Big Interview. Then
came the most difficult one: hold your own in a Big Debate. And she
did.

At the Washington Monthly's Political Animal blog, Steve
Benen was unimpressed either
way:

My initial reaction was that this debate will probably
make no difference whatsoever. Biden was obviously sharper and more
knowledgeable. Palin had obviously memorized a series of talking
points she repeated over and over again.

Who won? For viewers who checked their heads at the door, I guess it
was a toss-up. For anyone who cares about susbtance, it wasn't close.
Palin justkept repeating lies and nonsense, regardless of the
question, and regardless of common sense. On point after point, Biden
just out-classed her. The two really didn't belong on the same
stage.

Writing from Los Angeles for New America Media, Jasmyne A. Cannick argued that, in essence, they really weren't on the same
stage:

There were three debates going on tonight. The one Gwen
Ifill was moderating and the one both Senator Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah
Palin came to participate in.

I wish that for just once, when I take time out of my day, a day that
is busy from the moment I wipe the crust out of my eyes to the minute
I fall asleep at my desk and my snoring wakes me up, that when the
candidates come together to debate each other and the moderator asks
them a question...they just answered it. I know, a novel
idea.

As Heather Gehlert observed at AlterNet, "Many politicians have mastered the art of dodging questions," she wrote. "What struck me about this debate was that Sarah Palin has mastered the art of something else: making you forget the
question."

Kevin Drum, blogging for Mother Jones, put it this
way:

I'll be honest: I genuinely didn't understand about 50% of
what Sarah Palin said. She pretty overtly didn't even pretend to
address a lot of [moderator Gwen] Ifill's questions -- probably
because she couldn't -- and a lot of her filibustering ended up
sounding like random strings of phrases from the Hockey-Mom-o-Bot
3000. This was especially true as time wore on. If nothing else, this
makes it almost impossible to judge the substance of what she
believes, and despite the fact that she "connects" with ordinary
people, I have a feeling that an awful lot of ordinary people weren't
impressed with this.

On the other hand, A. Serwer of The American Prospect's
TAPPED blog, wasn't so keen on those questions. "Obviously, Gwen
Ifill's biggest problem is not bias, but really bad questions, Serwer wrote . As an example, he offers, "'Which is worse? A nuclear Iran or an unstable Pakistan?' I'm paraphrasing, but that question is roughly equivalent to 'would you rather be stabbed or
shot?'"

And about those ordinary people Drum spoke of, Salon's Walter Shapiro
watched the debate with a group of Republican-leaning voters in Green
Bay, Wisc., and his observations would bear out Drum:

Watching a debate in an intensely partisan setting can be
a through-the-looking-glass experience since the verdict has been
determined before the trial. But what was telling Thursday night was
that the mood of the volunteers was subdued. At times it seemed like
the delivery of six pizzas was a more dramatic event than the most
over-hyped vice-presidential debate in history. This emotional
reticence was in no way a reflection on Palin, but rather a reaction
to the overly scripted debate. As Stephanie Kundert, the 26-year-old
campaign manager for state Rep. Karl Van Roy, said after blogging the
debate for a conservative website, "In parts, it was
boring."

The Washington Independent's Laura McGann filed from Peanut Farm Bar & Grill, a bar in Anchorage, mixing her debate-blogging with lots of local
color:

This place looks ideal. We've got nine full-size projector
screens with Fox News on and six flat screens also tuned into Fox.

I'd expect an interesting crowd, as Gov. Sarah Palin's sister watched
Palin give her famous Republican convention speech here...two people
just sat down at the table next to me wearing T-shirts featuring Sarah
Palin riding a polar bear in front of the Washington Capitol
Building.

AlterNet's Don Hazen filed from the other end of the world (or so
it seems) -- a room filled with artists in New York's Chelsea
neighborhood. There he found his compatriots about as reticent to
claim a victory for Biden as the Green Bay Republicans were to declare
one for Palin:

[T]here was a separate, contrary undercurrent in the room
and in follow-up interviews. It was a disquiet, which I shared with
half a dozen people I spoke with. Call us the working class
sympathizers. Maybe because of our roots, or work as artists, we are
more tuned in to the reality where form can often take precedence over
substance.

One actress, who has been doing some speaking for Obama in
Pennsylvania offered that Palin scared her: "She was slick, she had
her role down; she is going to appeal to people more than we think."
An artist, with roots in working class Philly was clearly disturbed:
"Pallin hung in there; it pissed me off. I think for some voters, it
is not what she says, but how she says it, and she had the language
thing down. People in this room may dismiss it, but to some people,
she sounds real and authentic, and that will help her."

Because of the ideosyncratic nature of this debate -- no steering the
candidates back to the questions they strayed from answering -- much
of the critique hung on style rather than substance: Palin stared at
the camera, Biden addressed the moderator; Palin asked to call Biden
by his first name, then never did; Biden cried when talking about
caring for his sons when they were in critical condition. However,
substance there was, such as when Palin let it drop that she thought
the Constitution conferred upon the office of the Vice Presidency
powers that have yet to be exercised, an assertion that even
mainstream media commentators found somewhat astonishing. Liveblogging from Anchorage, McGann wrote: "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Which
branch????"

Both candidates claimed to be great fans of Israel, and there was an
exchange on whether the Global War on Terrorism was centered in Iraq
or on the Afghan/Pakistan border.

TAPPED's Serwer observed, "Palin's best moment so far was calling Biden out on trying to have it both ways on the war. She's absolutely right that he was engaging in Washington speak, not that platitudes topped by nonsense and gibberish are much
better."

At Grist, Kate Sheppard assessed the candidates' response to questions
on energy and the environment, and discovered some
Biden doublespeak:

Biden made other remarks sure to perk up the ears of Grist
readers, especially his assertion that "I have always supported [clean
coal], and that's a fact" -- a much stronger pronouncement than his
previous statements on the subject. He added, "By investing in clean
coal and safe nuclear ... we can create new jobs," and later in the
debate repeated, "My record for 25 years has been supporting clean
coal."

Even as recently last week, Biden said "We're not supporting 'clean
coal.'" And last year, in an interview with Grist, he said, "I don't
think there's much of a role for clean coal in energy independence."
He's always said, however, that he thinks that "clean coal" technology
should be exported to China, which he repeated tonight: "China is
building one to three new coal-fired plants burning dirty coal per
week. It's polluting not only the atmosphere but the West Coast of the
United States. We should export the technology by investing in clean
coal technology."

Blogging for The Nation, Ari Melber saw a bit more substance than some of his colleagues in the progressive blogosphere, but that didn't stop him from culling video clips of some of the less substantive moments. "Thursday's vice presidential debate was a serious and substantive affair," he wrote. "With superb moderating by Gwen Ifill, the conversation stuck to policy-driven sparring, but the footage is already taking a different shape on YouTube." Click here to see Melber's spicey
moments.

Greg Sargent of TPM Election Central was among the first to share with us the results of the CBS snap poll that showed Biden the clear winner of the
debate:

The first round of snap polls give the debate to Joe
Biden, by sizable margins.

CBS polled 473 uncommitted debate-watchers, and found that 46% say
Biden won, 21% say Palin won, and 33% say it was a tie.

While both candidates saw their images improve, 98% saw Biden as
"knowledgeable" after the debate, while only 66% saw Palin as
knowledgeable, an admittedly high number, given what folks thought of
her before tonight.

[...]

It's not wise to put too much stock in snap polls. But if this bears
out, it'll confirm our earlier argument: Palin's disastrous interviews
raised expectations for her tonight, in the sense that the pressure on
her to prove she's ready for the job was even higher than it otherwise
might have been. And she didn't prove it, at least according to these
early numbers.

Writing at his eponymous blog, Ezra Klein of The American Prospect
concluded:

At the end of the day, it wasn't about expectations. Palin
surpassed hers. Shattered them, in fact. The stumbling, tongue-tied,
intellectually uncertain novice who withered before Katie Couric's
steady questioning was absent this evening. Palin was confident,
on-message, and at times, sharp. But it didn't matter. The polls were
clear... Like McCain before her, Palin performed at the top of her
game, and it wasn't enough.

Whether or not that will matter, well, we'll know in about a month.

--Adele M. Stan

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting
about John McCain. Visit JohnMccain.NewsLadder.net
for a complete list of articles on McCain. And for the best
progressive reporting on two
critical issues, check out Immigration.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net.

JohnMcCain.NewsLadder.net
is a project of The Media
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CommonSense NMS. Adele M.
Stan is executive editor of The Media Consortium's syndicated
reporting project.

Adele M. Stan
Executive Editor, Syndicated Reporting Project
The Media Consortium