This just in (Debates)

[JCL]

I thought she won in that she beat the very low expectations that were set for her going in. She did much better that previous outings, but the down home aw shucks gitt'er done y'all tone was a bit much. Maybe she really speaks like that. How many cliches can one insert in a single answer?

I thought Biden did much better at actually answering the questions, but he had the advantage of experience to draw on, so that was expected.

The moderator went very soft on her, probably due to the charges of potential bias.

Will be interesting to see if the polls change much.

[MrLabGuy]

Biden pretends to know things he knows nothing about. Case in point...He was adamant that Global Warming was caused by man.

Gee Biden...Ever hear about Solar Activity? That is the thing that caused the Ice Ages and Global Warming periods before man used sticks and rocks.

[Wagner]

Now I actually posted a near transcript of the debate as it happened. Take a glimpse at the SPIN the media is putting together. Remember, what I posted, aside from my very first opinions in the beginning, was nearly verbatim of the candidate in the time/order it happened. See if the media spin is anything like the truth:

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10...-mates-debate/

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/...ate/index.html

"He decided he was not gonna take her on directly," MSNBC's David Gregory said. "She challenged him, she mocked him, she chided him. He decided to train his responses and just talk about (John) McCain's record."

"Sarah Palin was threatening to become an embarrassment to the Republican ticket," CNN analyst David Gergen said. "I think she erased that tonight."

"You're not going to see this debate have much of an effect on this race," NBC News analyst Chuck Todd said. "This probably won't live much beyond a 24-hour period."

Republican strategist Mike Murphy, on MSNBC, said the debate "became a bit of a nothing-burger."

"The problem for John McCain is this doesn't change the dynamics of the race, which have shifted in Obama's favor," Gergen said.

The BBC's Jane O'Brien in Washington says Mrs Palin played to her strengths and her image as a mother in touch with ordinary Americans.
For the most part she spoke fluently but simply about the economy, climate change and the war in Iraq, our correspondent says, and there were few of the stumbling gaffes that have become the staple of late-night comedy shows.

Mrs Palin, governor of energy-rich Alaska, said human activities were a factor in climate change but that climatic cycles were also an element. She urged US energy independence as part of the answer.
Mr Biden pointed to climate change as one of the major points on which the two campaigns differed, saying: "If you don't understand what the cause is, it's virtually impossible to come up with a solution." - Note that BBC left out the part where Biden said Climate change was only caused by humans.





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Notables:
Biden said Obama never said he would meet with leaders without preconditions

In a Democratic debate last summer, the candidates were asked whether they would be "willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?"

"I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous," Obama answered

One thing that kept getting tossed back and forth was "support for the troops":

On May 24, 2007, Obama was one of 14 senators who voted against a war-spending plan that would have provided emergency funds for American troops overseas.

[Wagner]

Word clouds from BBC (words most used in the debate by an individual)

[Last5oh]

Originally Posted by Wagner

According to Biden/Obama, climate change is "completely man made"...."and melts the ice caps" apparently there has never been a climate change before man

Well duh, before man (or civilized man) the concept of climate never existed!!! You blond or something!!??? LOL

You should know better than taking a politician's word for scientific fact!.

[Thunder22]

From today's NY POST:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10032008...ck__131933.htm

EVERY Republican in America rejoiced last night: "At long last the Couric captivity is over! Sarah Palin is free!"

Palin had suffered through a series of nightly interview bits with CBS anchor Katie Couric that seemed to last a month, with the Alaska governor shedding credibility by the minute. But last night, they instantly became a distant memory.

Palin held her own against Joe Biden, and flashed the poise and charm that made her such a star at the Republican convention.

Hers might have been the most unusual debate performance since Ross Perot's running-mate James Stockdale showed up at the 1992 VP contest. From the moment she opened by saying the best measure of the economy is what parents are saying on the sidelines of soccer games, it was clear how utterly different she is in American politics - a candidate of, by and from the middle class.

She talked about regular middle-class people with the credibility of having lived that life every day, even for a time lacking health insurance. Or, as she put it at the end, she and John McCain will "fight for the middle-class, average family - like mine."

Biden was fine and controlled his notorious gassiness, but they were two candidates playing on different levels.

She dropped her G's ("puttin' government back on the side of the people") and said "darn" and "doggonit" in a folksy, familiar style; he referred to himself in the third person in the self-important senatorial style.

She kept it general, direct and common-sensical; he loaded his answers with detail. She exuded a sincerity that pulsed through the screen; he seemed like a typical senator.

Last night, Palin plainly had two ingredients that were missing from her network TV interviews, and they made all the difference:

* She was more familiar with the substance. If she'd been as well-briefed and comfortable with the material before those interviews, the McCain campaign could have spared itself weeks of bad publicity.

* She'd learned to sidestep questions she found awkward and steer the discussion onto better ground for her (usually energy policy).

Put those together with her off-the-charts likeability, and you could see why she was a political force that so confounded the opposition in Alaska.

Yes, there were obvious weak points in her knowledge. She didn't defend McCain effectively on deregulation, didn't rebut Biden's detailed critique of McCain's health-care plan and seemed at sea in answering a question about nuclear policy.

But she also laid good clean hits on Biden. And he couldn't respond to some of them - for instance, his own criticism (during the pri- maries) of Obama as not ready to be president.

Plus, he was the one who made the more obvious factual errors, falsely denying that Obama had pledged to meet without pre-condition with Iranian President Ahmadinejad and claiming that McCain had voted the same way as Obama on a budget resolution repealing the Bush tax cuts.

In the runup to the debate, Biden stressed how often he'd debated women. Sure - but not a woman like Sarah Palin.

At times, Biden seemed almost to be laughing at her, smiling broadly during her answers. At others, she seemed to get under his skin and he talked fast and heatedly in his responses.

One wonders if he ever realized that, even with 35 years in the Senate and all his expertise and fluidity in policy, he wasn't beating the hockey mom from Wasilla.

Palin's syntax is odd, and she has noticeable verbal tics, saying "here," "there" and "also" too much. Occasionally, she gets lost in a blizzard of her own words. But the quirkiness makes her more vivid, setting her apart from the rest of the political establishment.

By the end, as she got even more comfortable, she seemed to become more winsome by the minute - her smile sparkling as she even threw off the occasional wink. She jabbed Biden with a good-natured, "There you go again, Joe." And Biden himself seemed genuinely charmed.

[Quicksilver]

What exactly is wrong with "O'rielly"?
I saw part of that confrontation this morning.

[mrkbbd]

IMO Palin's answers last night were pathetic. She seemed to answer everything with a memorized generalization especially exemplified by the constant repetition. She did much better than I was expecting, but Biden's performance was just so much better that virtually anything good Palin said was overshadowed by Biden's responses. I am a Republican but after seeing that debate last night I'm uneasy about my choice to vote for McCain. I don't like Obama because I feel he calls for change but has never really explained what his "change" is. I like Biden, though. However, it's becoming more and more apparent that I can't vote for McCain because of Palin. She just isn't ready yet, maybe in a few years. Plus her mannerisms are embarrassing, imagine what would happen when she meets with foreign dignitaries and comes off with her "hickish" image. Pretty much I thought I was decided, but after last night I have a lot of thinking to do before I cast my vote in November.

[Thunder22]

Her "hickish" image is what 75% of the American population calls normal.

I'll take hick with morals over SLick willy and his bj morality any day.

[MrLabGuy]

Originally Posted by mrkbbd

IMO Palin's answers last night were pathetic. She seemed to answer everything with a memorized generalization especially exemplified by the constant repetition. She did much better than I was expecting, but Biden's performance was just so much better that virtually anything good Palin said was overshadowed by Biden's responses. I am a Republican but after seeing that debate last night I'm uneasy about my choice to vote for McCain. I don't like Obama because I feel he calls for change but has never really explained what his "change" is. I like Biden, though. However, it's becoming more and more apparent that I can't vote for McCain because of Palin. She just isn't ready yet, maybe in a few years. Plus her mannerisms are embarrassing, imagine what would happen when she meets with foreign dignitaries and comes off with her "hickish" image. Pretty much I thought I was decided, but after last night I have a lot of thinking to do before I cast my vote in November.

Yep...Biden sounded VERY Presidential going as far to say anything to make himself and Obama look good truth be damned. So much for change.