Biden Wins, Palin does not crash and burn

The debate proceeded more or less like i thought it would. Palin stuck to her folksy ways and repeatedly failed to answer questions put to her by Gwen Iffil who did a excellent job moderating. Palin was very shallow and wrong through out the night on the factual and substance basis for her answers. She contradicted established McCain camp positions leading McCains campaign to have to clarify some of those statements like the one on gay rights and on bankruptcy court judges altering mortgages. She was bereft of substance during most of the night. That however was not her goal. Her goal was simply not to flail about like a fish on the deck of ship, she passed that test.

So i think most people came away thinking she was not as bad as the couric interviews showed her to be. She avoided the few follow up questions posed to her and did a decent job showing her personality.

Biden simply rocked on everything but the issue of clean coal. That is by far the softest position obama has. Carbon sequestration is not now or ever going to be a viable approach to coal. Its not real and that Obama continues with it is so surprising in many ways.

Biden destroyed Palin on Iraq and healthcare and the issue of chey and the vp office. he made no major gaffes. He won big and Palin really did not belong on that stage with him.

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She was not that bad

every one on the net will be doing a biden-palin debate post so i wanted to get in on the action. My prediction based on having read the chronicles about palin's debate in alaska and heard from a person who moderated one on rachel maddow is that palin will stop her skid, at least for now.

I base this primarily on the way the debate is formatted and the 90 second answers without follow up. The Lincoln-Douglas debates this is not. Look for palin to filibuster questions and throw out cute anecdotes and some buzz words. She will be very shallow but generally good humored. She will play up the awe-shucks nature of her candidacy and barley skim the surface on policy questions.

The results of this will be that people get a fairly positive impression of her and many people will simply think that she is not as bad as has been portrayed by the slow roll out of couric footage, a new disaster for every night. the debate will lack the follow up questions that dig a little deeper into issues and answers. It is the follow ups that destroy palin. She can razzle dazzle on the initial question but cant go beyond that.

Biden for his part will go the route of the elder statesman and simply demonstrate his competancy. I doubt the debate even has the feel of biden v palin as much as the palin show. People trust Biden and they are not really looking for him to put her away in a show of her ignorance. He will try to put some pressure on her to follow up or go deeper into her answers but i just dont see it happening.

One possibility to keep in mind is that palin gets into a habit of making snide and sarcastic remarls. There might be an opportunity for biden to deliver a set down that reveals how small and inadequate palin is. I dont rate this possibility highly.

Over all i think palin halts her nose dive as people are distracted by her in the debate. They will have a tougher time connecting the debate palin with the interview palin. In any event it should be fun tv...

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