Palin Avoids Blunders, Biden Gives Solid Answers

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Sarah Palin, Joe Biden
If you went into Thursday night's vice presidential debate favoring the Democratic side, you are still with them right now.

But the news of the big debate night, and perhaps the news of the entire 2008 presidential election, is that if you were even slightly leaning towards the GOP ticket, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin did nothing to make you jump ship. That's BIG news because the truth is the Republican vice presidential nominee was the story going into the night, not her adversary Sen. Joseph Biden.

Yes, she felt rehearsed. And yes, viewers could practically hear the gears turning in her head as she repeatedly veered from answering the questions posed by moderator Gwen Ifill and returned to the safe harbor of her notes.

When asked for meaty thoughts, Palin usually offered up cotton candy comments like when addressing the Middle East situation.

Biden called the Bush policy an abject failure. Palin conceded there have been failures by her GOP predecessors but scolded Biden for "too much finger-pointing backwards." Sounds good but can't we talk about earlier failures – especially since you have offered few specifics on what you would do better? ...


At another point, Palin expressed pride in teaming with the Arizona senator and hailed him as a man "who knows how to win a war."

Yes McCain served with honor while being taken as a prisoner in the Vietnam conflict. But can you tell me exactly which war he has won?

The comment, however, and several others Palin offered at Washington University in St. Louis, achieved their desired effect in a sound-bite craving world – they sounded somewhat convincing and seemed heartfelt.

That might not seem like a lot to have accomplished, but Palin wasn't exactly enjoying a banner week going into the contest.

For weeks, word coming out of the Republican camp was that she was failing miserably during debate preparations.

Then excerpts from her televised interview with Katie Couric shined a bright light on her dim understanding of how to impress as a vice presidential candidate.

Asked by Couric which publications inform her thinking, the former journalism student stammered, then babbled for a bit, but ultimately failed to name a single newspaper, magazine or news website she reads.

The bar was set low Thursday. And she managed to crawl over it.

For his part, Biden provided solid answers and generally avoided talking too much. He did from time to time get caught up in numbers or complex retorts that were far more accurate but far less pithy than Palin's. The only true passion of the night came toward the end of the debate when Biden choked up when talking about the auto accident that claimed his wife and seriously injured two of his sons.

Biden then launched into what should be a centerpiece of the Democratic message: while proudly claiming the tag of a "maverick" through the campaign, John McCain has consistently voted with Bush and against policies for everyday Americans even to expand children's health care coverage.

But by then Democrats who had been waiting for the big Palin blunder, the silly sound bite that would doom her candidacy, were feeling disappointed. She proved for her supporters that cotton candy is better than nothing at all.
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Paul Shepard blogs the Democrat side of the election for BlackVoices. He has been a journalist for 16 years; on the national urban/minority affairs beat for The Cleveland Plain Dealer and for The AP in Washington, D.C.



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