Live Blogging the VP Debate

This should be entertaining. Mr. 11d is popping corn and I've got a Corona. Party on.

Place your predictions now. Winner? Loser? Number of gaffes?

Out of the block, Palin drops the soccer mom card. She's part of the team of mavericks hanging out at soccer games.

I'm watching the audience reaction pulse on the CNN scrawl. Every time someone says "subprime mortgage" the pulse goes down. Nobody knows what that means.

I really, really want to trim Palin's bangs.

She just said that she's not going to answer the questions.

She's do better than she did on Couric. She's been coached very, very well. But Biden just destroyed McCain's health plan and the claim that higher taxes on the wealthy would hurt small business owners. But he's started to getting heated up.

Oversight v. regulation. Why do Republicans say that they support oversight, but they oppose regulation? Aren't they the same thing?

She keeps coming back to energy policy.

Gay marriage. Biden says they support equal rights for gay couples. Palin says she's tolerant. Some of my best friends are gay. Wow. Neither support gay marriage.

Iraq. Palin. Surge = good. Biden. Need to have a timeline. Everybody thinks so. We need to end this war. Palin. Surge = good. Obama voted to cut off funding for the troops. Bad man. Curl of the lip. Biden. McCain voted to cut off funding for the troops.

Iran/Afghanistan. Biden - both are dangerous. The worse threats come from Osama in a cave, not Iraq. Let's build schools. Palin. Both are baddies. The Castro brothers are also evil. That old dude in a hospital gown in Cuba is very dangerous.

Others are live blogging. Check out Dan Drezner, Megan McArdle,

Change. Palin. Change means never having to say you're sorry. These guys spend too much timing talking about Bush and the past.  Change is coming. With that Maverick.

Afghanistan. Palin. Surge is so good. We'll do it there, too. We're not just killing civilians. Biden. Surge won't work there. Some tough general said so.

I'm officially disappointed. Where's the drama? I was hoping that Biden would let one "little missy" slip. And I was hoping that Palin would get pressed to have explain her views on federalism or any supreme court decision.

Palin. Golly gee. I'm a Washington outsider. Straight talk. Maverick. Soccer mom.

Biden. This is the most important election. My students think so. I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say about this.

Education. Palin. She feels confident here. She knows the right things to say here. But neither candidate really went into depth here. Want more.

What the hell does a VP do? Palin and Biden. Lots of straight talking. Me. NADA. They hang around waiting for the president to die.

Oh, Biden got choked up when that he also knows what it's like to worry whether or not your kid is going to make it. Really sweet.

Biden. Let's talk about the Maverick. McCain hasn't been a maverick on education, health care, the war, virtual anything that people talk about around the kitchen table. Biden is finally kicking ass.

Single issue that you've had switch? Palin. I haven't had to change my position on anything, because I haven't held office for all that long.

Palin final words. I like this format a lot better than when MSM twists my words. We have to fight for freedom. Because the commies are coming.

Biden final words. Oh, I spaced out. Because I was too busy changing my facebook status. Now it reads "Laura is the best darn, maverick soccer mom on the planet."

Overall. Eh. Didn't change anyone's minds. Nothing juicy enough to make a tasty YouTube clip. Biden clearly made better points, but Palin didn't fall on her face and that's all she had to do tonight. She does have that homey charm. I would say it was a draw.

 

Comments

[Timothy Burke]

Almost robotically rehearsed, but at least semi-coherent. Kind of boring. I think I'm going to go do some other stuff and let my other half watch for gaffes or blow-ups.

[Wendy]

If she does that breathy voice thing again, I may scream.

[Russell Arben Fox]

Why didn't Biden make the obvious kill? Palin spends close to a minute during the opening question round talking about how she agrees that the "corruption and greed," the "toxic mess," on Wall St. needs greater oversight, and see praises Senator McCain for having pressed for reforms. Then, ten minutes later, she channeling Ronald Reagan: "government is the problem." Um, so where is the oversight and reform she just praised supposed to come from. DUH!

Dude, she really runs back to energy as a topic whenever she can.

[Russell Arben Fox]

Palin: "We've got to clean up this planet!"

[Jeannette]

gah! she just said nucular

[jen]

He needs to bring up dick cheney as much as possible. that's good.

[Elizabeth]

I assume you mean Osama in the cave, not Obama.

[laura]

heh. yeah. Thanks, Elizabeth.

[drea]

so um she agrees with dick cheney that the VP is above the judicial branch and does not have to answer to them? wtf?

[jen]

thank god someone said Cheney is dangerous. phew.

[Wendy]

Ken thought Obama lost his debate, and this time he thought Palin lost, so I assume Palin won. :)

[MH]

About that "nucular"/nuclear thing. During my one and only high school speech contest, I got dinged by the judge for the same mistake. It must have been slightly grating since my topic was how a nuclear reactor works. The judge wrote "I don't care how Dan Rather says it, it's "nu-cle-ar." And, Dan Rather is where I got the mis-pronunciation. This was only a six or so years after Cronkite and everybody watched CBS news.

[bj]

Yeah,the nucular thing drive me crazy. I think it drives me crazy 'cause I think they do it on purpose, to thumb their noses at us intellectuals who insist on pronouncing it correctly.

I get dinged for pronouncing picture like pitcher, and it's a word I use a lot. I've started to replace it with the word "image" so people won't complain. It's a solution (kind of like Sedaris's plan never to use S's. That piece of text in his book is hilarious).

[bj]

PS: Folks who are voting for McCain -- are you convinced that Palin will step up to running the country if she needs to? Did the debate help in convincing you?

(And, I'm not asking if you should be, or to convince me, just whether you are convinced, as I am, that Obama will do a fantastic job, and that Biden will do an acceptable job).

[MH]

BJ, I'm not happy with the Republicans (or the Democrats) right now. As for the debate, I didn't really watch it for long enough to do anything more than realize it wasn't going to be a gaffe-filled laugh fest. Palin isn't enough to move me either way.

I'll probably calm down about the financial crisis and vote McCain. If I don't calm down, I'll cast some sort of protest vote for some third party nutcase.

[Amy P]

I think Obama would be a better president than Biden--Obama does seem to be teachable. Biden goes around saying weird stuff. People seem to like him and say that he's like your drunk uncle, but I'm not very excited at the prospect of the drunk uncle being a heartbeat away from the presidency or representing the US abroad, which is a big part of the VP's job. If Obama-Biden wins, expect a Biden gaffe-triggered international incident quarterly. Palin obviously can learn, even if it hasn't been fast enough. Biden has been in Washington for three and a half decades and he's not going to get any better. As I think Jonah Goldberg was saying this morning, Biden seems to get a lot of his intellectual cred by just making stuff up, for instance the stuff about Hezbollah having been removed from Lebanon, or his figures comparing spending on Iraq and Afghanistan. And foreign policy is supposed to be his strong suit. Biden's been creating his own facts for a long time (for instance appropriating a British politician's bio and embellishing his own academic credentials back in the late 80s), but it will be interesting whether he'll be able to get away with it in the age of the internet.

[bj]

But, Amy, you're pulling a Sarah Palin.

I didn't ask whether Obama or Biden would be the better president and, I didn't actually ask you guys to assess the Democratic candidates. I asked if you were confident of Palin's ability to assume the presidency, if need be.

"Palin obviously can learn, even if it hasn't been fast enough."

This might answer it, if you think her answers reflect real learning about the subject, but I guess the follow up question is *when* you think she'll have learned enough, if her rate of learning is a little too slow. Will she be ready on Day 1? Day 2? Day 33?

[MH]

"If Obama-Biden wins, expect a Biden gaffe-triggered international incident quarterly."

Amy, to me that's the upside to an Obama win. The fact that most people in other countries like Obama does not make me feel better about Obama. I enjoy watching foreigners get tweaked regardless of which party is causing offense.

[bj]

PS: "A Palin" is answering a question other than the one that was asked:

question: "What is the capital of New York?";

response: "The capital of Idaho is Boise" Well, actually, more like "capitals are really very important, because they're where we run our governments from. Sometimes they're not in a very good place, like Juneau, in my own state of Alaska, isn't in the city that I live in. . . . "

[Amy P]

bj,

Actually, no. Biden and Palin are the two VP options, so they can't be discussed separately. I think Palin is capable of carrying out VP responsibilities beautifully--smile, shake hands, go to funerals, charm foreigners, break ties in the Senate, etc. Biden, on the other hand, is eventually going to be filmed awkwardly patting some Arab dignitary's wife on the knee (or some other obvious violation of Islamic etiquette) and riots will ensue around the globe, nullifying Obama's alleged magical ability to make the world love us. (If you don't believe me, check out Biden's body language with the alternachick in the "clean coal" video.) I think Palin will eventually make a good president, and sooner rather than later. Biden has never been presidential material, which we see reflected in his very poor showing in the Democratic primaries.

My personal sanity-saving approach to the election has been that if McCain-Palin doesn't win the election, they weren't smart enough or trying hard enough, and it just wasn't meant to be. (Andrew Cuomo!)