2008 VP Debate Thread

[The Boston Dangler]

i, for one, am hugely disappointed there wasn't a complete meltdown by sugartits palin. don't interpret this as approving of her competition

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: CallMeJoe
"she was giving a series of mini stump speeches" (Fox)

Talking about her speech cadences and folksy talk now.

she sure was stumped.

 

[ranmaniac]

Great, Frank Luntz is on...

 

[postmortemIA]

looks like everybody is biased, i I thought Palin was greeat sweet talker

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Drift3r
Listening to Palin talk was like listening to someone run their nails on a chalkboard. It was painful and not pleasant. She just came off as a parrot repeating party lines with no real substance or clear ideas of her own.

You pretty much summed up most of the participants of P&N... well, actually, also most politicians in general.

Did you watch the debate?

 

[Red Dawn]

Palin didn't make a fool out of herself so mission accomplished.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I think it's pretty sad when Republicans say their VP did a "good job" by not screwing. Why should anyone want to vote for a VP when their own party sees her not screwing up as a major victory?

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: zerocool84

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler

Originally posted by: zerocool84
Palin did a good job of not sticking to the questions on topic and going with what she knew.

which is what? repeating rhetoric

Hey I don't support her but I'm just stating what she did. She made herself "sound" a lot better than she usually is.

She managed to demonstrate her ability to articulate (which we knew she had from her RNC speech), but it's only too obvious that she's just reading other people's words and talking points, and has no genuine substance of her own. IOW, she is the real 'empty suit' in this election.

 

[chess9]

Some observations:

Pros for Palin:

1. She did a pretty good job overall mastering the canned lines and understanding the issues at a superficial level;
2. She was very perky and upbeat. America likes salesmen/women;
3. She defined the debate as one about gauzy ideas, not facts, and that's good for Republicans;

Cons for Palin:

1. She constructs arguments out of ideas with an occasional fact sprinkled in;
2. She sounds very gauzy, which is also good as I've noted above, unless you like razor sharp responses, such as the ones given mostly by Biden;
3. She loses focus very quickly and didn't answer the question about her achilles heel for instance. By the time she finishes speaking you have trouble remembering the topic because she wanders in 40 different directions. One gets the idea, a cynical one, that she has been fed a list of canned responses. She feels the need to reach down into the can and grab one way too frequently;
4. She speaks in cliches and trite ideas. "The White Flag of Surrender" brought a guffaw from me, and I'm sure I wasn't alone.

Pros for Biden:

1. He answered and rebutted superbly, and remember, I utter loathe and despise Biden!
2. His command of the facts and history are excellent. His past is prologue comment was stunning for its simplicity and truth.

Cons for Biden:

1. That fake smile is very annoying;
2. Off camera he looked bored/annoyed a few times;
3. He was too deferential to Palin. Should have hammered her more, but I guess he was afraid to be the Biden I loathe.

Overall, a pretty good debate. I don't think Palin hurt McCain, and I think she isn't such a bimbo after all. She's not dumb, she's just very inexperienced and raw. She's no rocket scientist mind you, but we are only talking President of the United States, so anything over 100 IQ is adequate as we know. Palin is so naive, she will appeal to a lot of people, so I think McCain might get a small bump out of this debate. It will ease some people's mind as well.

-Robert

 

[alphatarget1]

I'd say this was a tie, which in turn is a "win" by Palin. At least it wasn't as bad as her couric interview.

 

[TraumaRN]

I thought Biden did good, especially with regards to attacking the McCain/Bush camp. Palin did alright as well, no major gaffes but she never really answered a question. she was all over the place with her answers, seemingly ignoring the question at hand.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Palin didn't make a fool out of herself so mission accomplished.

And that's what's sad about it.

 

[OrByte]

OK the debate is done and I think Palin did a good job.

there I said it.

I think Biden did a good job too.

Both of their strengths were in connecting to people. I think they did good towards that end.

Where I think Palin failed is sticking too much to the script. Boy she was dead set against deviating from the script.

I think overall Biden did a good job but he failed to let his lips catch up to his brain a couple of times. I think he had an EXCELLENT opportunity to tie Palin to Cheney at the end there. He denounced Cheney's term as VP, but only seconds earlier Palin said she agrees with Cheneys interpretation of the powers of the VP office.

Good debate for both of them!!

DUDE that means PALIN=CHENEY!!! Biden should have jumped ALL OVER THAT.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Deeko
She did better than I expected, but still a lot of negatives.

Look at it this way. Everyone is biased towards their side...the fact that the republicans here are saying it was close, tells you that in reality it was a pretty solid win for Biden.

:thumbsup:

 

[Insomniator]

Lol I am a conservative but Fox News is funny right now, they have a little 20 person audience in the studio and must have paid them to say how much they love Palin right now. Reminds me of an infomercial audience.

 

[jpeyton]

CNN's poll of their split audience shows an overwhelming win for Biden.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: Vic
"Back in the day when we were free"... until Bush racked up $10 trillion plus in debt and started an illegal, massive wire tapping program.

Fixed.

As much as I don't quite agree with all of the Patriot Act, especially the wiretapping, and while it does kind of go against the Constitution... the Patriot Act is FAR from a Bush-only thing... it got voted into law by Congress, remember that. Congress could have said, "you know what... this is a BAD idea".
Oh, and then there's the whole Supreme Court, which could overturn it for being unconstitutional. So, it's no longer considered illegal if the entire government has accepted it into law, thus turning it legal.
Blame all of the government on this one, not a single person.
Oh wait... everyone likes to make the President the face of the government, and point all blame or praise on that single individual, instead of the entire government where it belongs, especially Congress most of all.

If people care about government, carefully follow the Congressmen of your state and look up their voting records while in Congress. If they don't match up to you what you think is right, don't vote.
Don't follow blindly with just what they say during election campaigns and what is on their website, as they can easily say one thing, and do something else, and really have no fear of losing their position unless they do something illegal, especially as a President, and especially if they don't care about being reelected or are in their last term as President.

 

[winnar111]

Well that was kind of boring. Meh.

 

[CallMeJoe]

Originally posted by: Insomniator
Lol I am a conservative but Fox News is funny right now, they have a little 20 person audience in the studio and must have paid them to say how much they love Palin right now. Reminds me of an infomercial audience.

"catered to her adorability" I loved that line.

 

[winnar111]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: Vic
"Back in the day when we were free"... until Bush racked up $10 trillion plus in debt and started an illegal, massive wire tapping program.

Fixed.

As much as I don't quite agree with all of the Patriot Act, especially the wiretapping, and while it does kind of go against the Constitution... the Patriot Act is FAR from a Bush-only thing... it got voted into law by Congress, remember that. Congress could have said, "you know what... this is a BAD idea".

Other than his tax cuts and his Supreme Court nominees, basically everything Bush has passed has been with the support of the Democrats.

 

[Red Dawn]

She definitely came across that she'd be a good mayor of a podunk town in Alalska.

 

[OrByte]

Originally posted by: chess9
Some observations:

Pros for Palin:

1. She did a pretty good job overall mastering the canned lines and understanding the issues at a superficial level;
2. She was very perky and upbeat. America likes salesmen/women;
3. She defined the debate as one about gauzy ideas, not facts, and that's good for Republicans;

Cons for Palin:

1. She constructs arguments out of ideas with an occasional fact sprinkled in;
2. She sounds very gauzy, which is also good as I've noted above, unless you like razor sharp responses, such as the ones given mostly by Biden;
3. She loses focus very quickly and didn't answer the question about her achilles heel for instance. By the time she finishes speaking you have trouble remembering the topic because she wanders in 40 different directions. One gets the idea, a cynical one, that she has been fed a list of canned responses. She feels the need to reach down into the can and grab one way too frequently;
4. She speaks in cliches and trite ideas. "The White Flag of Surrender" brought a guffaw from me, and I'm sure I wasn't alone.

Pros for Biden:

1. He answered and rebutted superbly, and remember, I utter loathe and despise Biden!
2. His command of the facts and history are excellent. His past is prologue comment was stunning for its simplicity and truth.

Cons for Biden:

1. That fake smile is very annoying;
2. Off camera he looked bored/annoyed a few times;
3. He was too deferential to Palin. Should have hammered her more, but I guess he was afraid to be the Biden I loathe.

Overall, a pretty good debate. I don't think Palin hurt McCain, and I think she isn't such a bimbo after all. She's not dumb, she's just very inexperienced and raw. She's no rocket scientist mind you, but we are only talking President of the United States, so anything over 100 IQ is adequate as we know. Palin is so naive, she will appeal to a lot of people, so I think McCain might get a small bump out of this debate. It will ease some people's mind as well.

-Robert

great summary.

I would add that I think Biden came away from the debate actually and surprisingly (to himself) impressed by Palin. It was neat to see him at the end there give her props.

 

[StageLeft]

I'm behind, only about 60% through. You know on the simpsons when lisa breaks that kid's heart and they play it back in slow-motion? That happened to her during the foreign policy part. Biden went on about hamas, etc. and she had nothing but managed to remember who the leader of North Korea was. You can see exactly at this point in time that the smiling confident bubbly personality turned sour. She has gone from slightly behind to lagging more with every question, she is completely unhinged. All she has to fall back on is the talking points. And not good, deep ones, but like high level talking points that P&N neophytes use before the rest of us rip them apart for not even trying hard enough.

Also, note that Biden immediately answers every question directly. He pounces them. She is tryin to equivocate on everything. She is so desperate to avoid saying something completely like and for instance south africa and such as like as such as in Iraq that she isn't saying anything meaningful now.

This is awesome, people! Love it.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: alphatarget1
I'd say this was a tie, which in turn is a "win" by Palin. At least it wasn't as bad as her couric interview.

So she gets a 'tie which in turn is a win' because she didn't get an F- like the Couric interview? K...

 

[cwjerome]

She pretty much held her own on a stage with a dude who has been in the US Senate for 35 years. Reps got to breath a sigh of relief and Dems lost nothing gained nothing, imo.