I've just spent the past hour and a half watching Senator Joe Biden debate Alaska Governor Palin. As I type, the pundits (on ABC) are calling it a wash, and that each candidate performed adequately enough to satisfy their own supporters and changed no minds.
My gut tells me that Ms. Palin, strategically holding her disabled child at the end of the debate (and why isn't he in bed?), will have been persuasive to some remarkably stupid people. There is an audience out there who will listen to her folksy talk and feisty manner and say, "Hot damn, that's just what we need to clean out Washington." This type of voter will ignore policy detail, ignore the larger arguments that Biden was presenting--that McCain's policies are not any different from Bush's, and that under Bush, we are in a heap of trouble on many fronts--and they will feast on the idea that Palin is like them. (They will also manage to ignore the fact that Republicans have not delivered on all those social issues they run their campaigns on).
Palin managed to perform to training and habit, using diversion into personal ancedote when detail proved too complicated. She also managed some well placed compliments in an effort to neuter any sort of attack from Biden. Biden, wisely, avoided ripping her head off for her special combination of ignorance and gusto. So much of what was said in the debate was the McCain camp's effort to short circuit the process of critical thinking. It was imagery over substance, as though the repetition of the words "soccer mom" or "folks" might carry more weight than policy integrity.
The best example of diversion was Palin's suggestion that looking at the history of the Bush administration was somehow akin to dwelling in the past and not being forward looking. "Say it ain't so Joe" said Palin, at her folksy contrived best, attempting to counter the wisdom being tossed in her direction; that ignoring the past is the perfect way to relive it, mistakes and all.
Additional Thoughts on Palin:
1) Can't pronounce nuclear.
2) I rather doubt McCain will be pleased that Palin and Biden came to the exact same policy position on gay rights.
3) What war has McCain actually won? Palin said he had won some.
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