I watched the VP Debate last night (full coverage here on MSNBC Dashboard) and here are my thoughts.

I will begin by disclosing that I am not a republican, and in no way do I share the ideals and beliefs of McCain or Palin. I’m sure that in some way they are both lovely people to their family and friends, but that’s where it ends for me.

Last night’s debate was probably the most anticipated and watched debate of this election cycle, and I’ll venture to guess that more people watched it than the presidential debate (or will for the next one). I will also assume that people were watching to see if Palin would have any repeat performances like her much lampooned interviews with Katie Couric.

I don’t think that she had any major blunders last night - though a few of the questions did throw her for a loop. When the topic abruptly shifted from politics to climate change, she seemed completely unprepared for the change in subject and stumbled pretty heavily over a number of buzzwords. In fact, her performance in the second half of the show was painful - and a republican commentator even mentioned that no matter what republican you put on the stage, they will never win a debate on foreign policy. I think that’s saying something, and it’s not a good something.

Biden was professional, and only once or twice got a bit wind-baggy, which he’s been chided for in the past. He did a bit of repeating - on purpose - which got somewhat tedious, but he was blasting away with facts, figures, and very specific examples for most of the questions asked by the moderator. Palin on the other hand was also professional, when she wasn’t being folksy and “heck ya’ll”, but rarely spoke in specifics. Both candidates were chastised by the moderator for not answering one of her questions, but overall, Biden delivered, Palin did not.

The Palin buzzwords of the evening were “maverick”, “energy producing state”, “darn”, and a few other colloquialisms from up north. Oh and I should mention the best one of the night…Palin said nucular four times in one sentence. That’s right folks, nucular. Not nuclear. Nucular. It’s really hard to tell the American public that you’re not “more of the same”, when you can’t even speak English. And another thing - there is no General McClellan running the show overseas. Get the names right.

I want to bounce back to the opening for a moment, when the candidates met at center stage to greet each other. I’m thinking the mic’s should have been turned off for that, because we learned that Palin and Biden had never actually met each other before, and we also heard her ask “can I call you Joe?”. No Governor, you can not. You can refer to him in the professional manner that he referred to you all night, with your title. Senator and Governor. Not “Joe and Sarah’s Crabshack Debate”.

On to the wrap-up. Both candidates were passionate about their position, although Biden was passionate about Obama’s position AND his own, while Palin was passionate about McCain’s only. She spoke very little about what SHE would do (aside from the direct question on what special tasks McCain wanted her to run as VP) and more about what McCain had voted on, and what he wanted to accomplish. Even the question about what a Palin administration would look like seemed to derail her.

Each candidate ended with a practiced speech to encourage the viewers to vote for their presidential candidate. It wasn’t about Biden and Palin at that point, it was about Obama and McCain. It felt like one big presidential advertisement. Wasn’t this supposed to be the VP debate?

Heck, I don’t know about you but darnit golly gee I wanted to hear some tougher questions and less ridiculousness from Palin referring to Biden’s wife having her “reward in heaven” for being a teacher.

She can just go bless herself.

* Note: And just to make it very clear, my comments about Palin’s performance have nothing to do with her gender. Regardless of her gender I do not believe that someone who only got a passport recently, believes in killing animals for sport, and publicly admits that she’s “only been in this for a few weeks” has any right or experience to be 2nd in command of the United States. A commentator said it best last night - if Palin were in the situation room after 9/11 and was in charge of making the call to shoot down planes coming into US airspace, would you feel comfortable with that? No.

This sarcastic entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 7:26 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.