Quick Thoughts on Last Night's Debate

[catsittingstill]

1) When Obama says he agrees with an opponent, I hear  strong, competent adult being honest and reaching for consensus.  When Palin says she agrees with an opponent, the skin between my shoulder blades crawls and I want to glance behind me, looking for the knife.  Maybe that's because it seemed like every time she said she agreed with Biden, it was some kind of gotcha attack on Obama, except the one time it was a way to get out of answering the question about whether she supported civil rights for gay couples.

2) I understand that Palin was going to get some things wrong.  She's been cramming like crazy for this, and it looks like it worked, mostly, and she just didn't have time to check out anything for herself, but had to accept what her handlers told her.  But when she says Barak Obama voted against funding for the troops, and Biden points out that that bill was funding with a timeline, and that John McCain voted the exact same way on it, I expect her to be able to learn from experience on the fly.

When she repeated the slander later in the debate and had to be corrected again, it suggested that, like George W. Bush, she is incapable of revising her opinions based on new information.  That's very disturbing.  We've had eight years of a president like that and he has been pretty much an unmitigated disaster (or a series of them) for pretty much exactly that reason.

Unless, of course, she knows perfectly well it's false and is just repeating the lie hoping that enough repetitions will make people think it is true.  It's a sad situation when "she is deliberately lying, repeatedly, in the hope that the electorate is too dumb to notice or too morally dead to care" is the more hopeful option.

3) Palin managed to be coherent, which is not entirely a surprise; that extra week of cramming seems to have done the trick, and she did okay at debates in Alaska.  Biden managed to stay within his times, avoid any major foot-in-mouth episodes, and correct most of Palin's mis-statements without being either mean or condescending.  He had the harder task, but I think he accomplished it.
 
Generally, I don't think it was a game changer. 

Comments

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

Steve Harper got ganged up upon by those other 4, but came out looking like a good PM who listens without interuption when the opposition was out shouting him and each other.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I have got to get out more. I didn't realize there was a Canadian debate around the same time.

It usually ends up looking like a position of strength when one can stay calm under assault by a mob :-)

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

I had a lot of fun watching both debates. The kids and I chatted about Palin for awhile afterwards. Our favourite moment was her "I don't want to argue about the causes of warming, I just want to fix it." We all hope that she doesn't become the VP. After watching the other debate I still think I'm green, but I might just be NPD.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I feel very ignorant--was there a debate in Canada on the same night?

At any rate, FWIW, I'm glad you had fun and hope you found it informative.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Yup, here we have two debates. French and English. the English one was last night at 9 till 11. This is the first time I've paid mcuh attention to the American election. Since I figured it didn't have much to do with me. Well I've figured out that I might not like it, but I need to pay attention, you guys are Canada's biggest trade partner after all. So it's been really educational. While there are a lot of similarities, the differences I see are interesting.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Is it silly to reply to your self? Any way, I smile a little right now because you guys have been dealing with your election for ever already and even after you know who's won nothing happens till January. Ours was called 7th Sept and will be over the 14th Oct. 36 days from start to finish. I think we get the better deal. (G)

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I got the distinct impression that she didn't know anything about the issues but she had memorized a lot of stuff for this debate.

As for it being a game changer: it wasn't expected to change any minds that were already made up, and I doubt that it did. Hopefully, people who haven't already firmly decided will be looking at substance rather than fluff. The deeper you look, the more completely Biden kicked her ass -- but she did far better than the infamous network interviews where the superficial first impression was of a complete idiot. But Biden also managed to avoid making himself look like a total dork.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm hoping that people will look closely enough to see that she had a bunch of memorized speechlets that she swapped out as needed.

But I happen to know that one of my neighbors didn't look that closely. Or thinks Biden did no better. Of course, he says he liked her before the debate, so I guess that may have played a role.

And it's just one guy, not a case of so goes the nation. I hope.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-)

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Again, the early polling is hopeful, though media spin could still turn it around. And the thing to look out for are the Barracuda's teeth. It says something about Palin, I think, that she's apparently had surgery to make her face so much harder.

[updated to correct a copy error and include a better polling link]

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links. I disagree about the plastic surgery: a) I'm not very good with faces, but the changes in the pictures don't look out of line with how people change as they get older. b) even if she had plastic surgery I don't think that's a moral issue; lots of people do it.

Her smile looks fake to me, but it looks like the "I don't feel like smiling; I'm just doing it because you're supposed to smile for the camera" smile that everybody does at one time or another.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

There aren't enough lines on her face, even for someone who lives in Alaska; in family photographs (official photo) Sarah Palin almost looks younger than her daughters. And her plump, round-faced daughters look very much like her younger self. Skulls and jaws don't change much in adults, yet Sarah Palin has gone from being a round-faced teenager to a square-jawed adult with prominent cheekbones. I suppose that the aggressive young Sarah Palin, raised in a subculture with very limited roles for women, hated being a round-faced, plump, rather cute girl, so she had herself changed. Fair enough. But it says something about her, and about us as a people, that she thought it was worth doing.

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

We tuned in to CNN, where the network had live polling with undecided voters in Columbus, OH (where we live) with lines for men and women showing positive and negative reactions.

Initially, Palin had very high marks from both men and women, her vague, patriotic generalities sparking positive responses. Initially, Biden had mild negative responses. As the questions became more specific, her numbers never got much above neutral, while Biden's soared. Significantly in my mind, at least, was that her numbers never went negative. Deer in headlights appeared to work for her ("Do something really cute.")

Yet, whenever she tried the "I'm just an average American," line, the positive lines nosedived towards neutral. The undecideds weren't buying it.

Hope, hope, hope, hope, hoping folks vote on issues....

(I have to admit, on a completely fru-fru level, I liked Palin's suit. It's kind of nice to see *fashion* in politics other than the sexless, "boxy" pantsuits and women's suits more often seen. A little Jackie Kennedyesque. Not that taste in suits has anything to do with suitability for office, but it was shiny.)

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

The deer in headlights doesn't look as pathetic as Quayle's puppy.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I never saw Quayle's puppy :-) I haven't seen Palin yet either; I listened to the debate on the radio. So I missed the apparently famous wink.

But I have access to a DVD of it, so I intend to watch at least part of it.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

An hour and a half is just too long to disguise the fact that she just kept coming back to the same set of talking points instead of addressing the questions.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Five minutes would be too long to disguise that.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I too am reduced to hoping voters will go for substance over slogans and vote on the issues. Best of luck to us.

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Unless, of course, she knows perfectly well it's false and is just repeating the lie hoping that enough repetitions will make people think it is true.

Are you kidding? That's these people's entire M.O. That's what they do all the damn time. That's precisely what they've been doing for YEARS.

What disgusts me most is how many people it works on.