Noah Counte

First, it really wasn't a debate, was it? Right out of the box, Gov. Palin told Sen. Biden, the moderator, Gewn Ifill, and the American people that she wasn't going to answer the questions, she was going to make speeches to the American people. And that's just what she did. Time and again, she talked about energy policy, regardless of the content of the question. She spoke in full sentences, she spoke passionately, and she flirted mercilessly with us (I don't know about you, but she winked at me four times!), but she didn't answer questions. She pointed the finger at Sens. Obama/Biden, but she never responded to statements about Sen. McCain's policies, or viting record. To me, it was completely unsatisfying, and it's why I say Sen. Biden won the debate. He's the only one who debated. I've read enough to know that, gosh, she was darned endearing to some folks out there, but she completely alienated me with her unwillingness to play the game.

I saw a clip of Brian Williams on the Letterman Show. His wife equated the debate with a children's play date: you have another kid over to play with your little bundle of joy, and one plays with Legos while the other plays with blocks. They're in the same room, so technically, they are playing together, but really, they are engaging in seperate activities. So it was with the debate.

Expectations were so low for Gov. Palin that some people give her a victory simply for not screwing up. That America lets politicians and handlers redefine failure as success bothers me no end.

Sen. Biden, for his part, failed to live down to expectations, either. Known as a masterful debater who sometimes doesn't stop talking when he should, ran up against the end of his time less often than did Gov. Palin, and never put his foot in his mouth. He knew the material, spoke clearly, and didn't fall into pontificating endlessly.

I hate that this post is mostly about Gov. Palin, but golly, both her tactics and the content she came armed with bothered me. *wink*

I was bothered the Sen Biden didn't call her when she chided him for looking to the past. Her premise was that you can't talk about change while looking to the past. Sen. Biden, of course, was tying Sen. McCain to eight years of policies of President Bush. McCain has tried hard to coopt the idea of change as his own, and to discredit the idea, Sen. Biden drew comparisons to the past. If you represent more of the same, you ain't about change. Gov. Palin was acting as though Sen. Biden was comparing them to the Polk administration, for goodness' sake.

The reason I was bothered that Sen. Biden didn't call her on it, is because she continually was harkened back to the Reagan Era, which is even further in the past than the current Bush Era. She even quoted Reagan from a 1980 debate with President Carter: "say it ain't so, Joe, 'there you go again.'" "There you go again" was the Reagan reference. "Say it ain't so, JOe" is a reference to the Black Socks and Shoeless Joe Jackson, who threw a World Series game for money. As a side note, there is irony in the fact that President Reagan represents the death of traditional Republican fiscal conservativism, and that the first President Bush called him on it in the 1980 Presidential debates - remember the phrase "voodoo economics?" When Ronald Reagan took office, the public debt stood at $712 billion. By the time twelve years of Republican Presidencies had passed (two Reagan terms, and one Bush 41 term), it had increased more than 400 percent to $3.2 trillion. President Clinton's swa a much more modest increase of $70 billion in eight years, or 2%. When the current administration took over, the public debt stood at $3.3 trillion. This year, it is $5.4 trillion, an increase of 64%. I don't know how we can afford tax cuts, huge war spending, bailouts of Wall Street and Detroit, and who knows what other industries, while continuing to fund education and care of our seniors (let alone the care we should be providing to the neediest among us). That Republicans continue to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility makes my blood boil. There may be some out there, but the only ones in Congress who consistently come close to fiscal conservativism are the Blue Dog Coalition Democrats. While I'm thinking about it, how did a $700 billion bailout that didn't pass the House go to the Senate, have $150 Billion in "sweeteners" and pork added, and then go back to the House to get passed as a $700 billion bill? It's no wonder we're bailing them out - nobody up there can do simple addition.

Anyway, to get back to the debate, Gov. Palin may have put the ball in play, but she didn't knock it out of the park. The difference in temperment, preparation and knowledge point to Biden as a better choice for Vice President, and to Obama's better judgment on the subject. Which leads me to a couple of other points...

The Other Stuff

The McCain campaign is pulling out of Michigan. Three weeks ago, they thought it was winnable, now it seems beyond salvage. This puts immense pressure on McCain to win Florida or Pennsylvania (Florida looks like a toss up at the moment, and Pennsylvania seems to be leaning towards Obama), plus Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri and Nevada, all of which were won by George Bush in 2004, and all of which currently seem to be toss ups. Which means that the polling is all wrong, Obama could win by a landslide, or some catastrophic even will come along to derail Sen. Obama in the manner that the economy has derailed Sen. McCain.

In order to take voters' minds off the economy, the McCain camp has today promised to go negative for the rest of the race. There was a lot of negative campaigning prior to this weekend, but news accounts today suggest that almost all of McCains remaining budget will fund negative ads. It's all Sen. Obama's fault, of course, for not agreeing to ten town hall type debates. The new negative ads are already airing and Gov. Palin is the attack dog, tying Sen. Obama to Bill Ayers, a 60s radical who belonged to a group that built bombs, one of which killed a police officer. Obama and Ayers live in the same neighborhood, and sit on a charity board together. There's no evidence that they pal around, but with 13% of the population still believing that he's a Muslim, and worse, that being Muslim makes him unfit to be President, it's a sure bet that someone will belive that Sen. Obama is somehow implicated in the bombing of police when he was four or five years old. Batten down the hatches, it's going to get ugly.

If you remember the first Presidential debate, Sen. McCain accused Sen. Obama of not knowing the difference between tactics and strategy. Sadly, the McCain Presidential run these past several weeks has been all about tactics, and not at all about stragey. (Strategy has to do with your plans, while tactics have to do with your actions - what will you do to make your plans work?). The problem is, you have to have a stategy in order to have effective tactics. McCain planned to debate, suspended his campaign, tried to move the debate, went to Washington, finally changed his mind and went to the debate, tried to undermine the moderator of the Vice Presidential debate (probably the only successful tactic in the lot) in order to make Gov. Palin's task easier, and the list goes on. None of this activity moved him in towards his goal, because none of it was tied together with a strategy.

Gosh, I'm darned longwinded.