The Palin/Biden Debate

With the Vice Presidential debate now over, both campaigns are spinning their victories faster than the wheels on my Ford. As for who infact won, it honestly depends on what you were looking for in the debate. If you were grading purely on substance, it would be hard to say Sen. Biden didn't win. If you were grading on whether Gov. Palin was able to present herself to the public in a coherent manner, then you could certainly say that Palin won. By a 76 to 3 margin for Republicans and an 85-5 margin for Democrats, each party felt their prospective candidate won.

Ultimately, this line of thought brings us to an even bigger question. What do we define as an acceptable performance? Many in the media gave Palin high marks for the fact that she didnt stumble in the debate. However, this debate was essentially a free-rein debate. The moderator, Gwen Ifill, was either unwilling or unable to force an answer on the questions she originally asked. In fact, Gov. Palin was so bold to state that she would NOT answer questions the way the moderator desired because she was speaking to the American people. I think it sets a dangerous precedent if candidates are allowed to skirt inspection by the public, in the name of populism. This is a precedent that the American people alone will ultimately set or reject though, starting on November 4th. This argument certainly does not apply only to one party, or only to this election, but never has a candidate been so bold to state that he or she would not answer the questions the way required.

That being said, this debate ended much as I expected it would, without a splash and a decent performance by both sides. Sen. Biden took great lengths to avoid criticizing Gov. Palin directly, likely due to electroshocktherapy from the Obama campaign. I felt he generally gave direct answers and spared no expense to tie McCain to every issue brought up. Gov. Palin proved quite adept at reframing the conversation to issues more comfortable to her, though it was extremely transparent. With regards to the transparency, I anticipate many Americans outside of the Republican base noticed it, which does not serve her interests with Independents. Under the circumstances though, I do feel the Governor gave the best performance she was able to give. The question left to voters is whether it was good enough.