Late debate recap

I’m back from my weekend trip to Lehigh, which was a lot of fun despite my being somewhat sick. I watched the VP debate before heading out on Thursday, but I didn’t have much time to write a full reaction.

In general, I think what happened was in line with my (admittedly safe) predictions. Nothing especially exceptional happened, both candidates generally played it safe, Palin focused on talking points (the “maverick” drinking game was BRUTAL!).

Gwen Ifill’s performance was balanced but weak, I think. She didn’t press either of them to answer questions in any meaningful way and both sides took advantage of it. Ifill discussed this on Meet The Press yesterday and noted that Biden was using the forum to debate John McCain while Palin used it to give a speech to the audience. Neither really debated.

This line from Palin took me by surprise:

I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you [Biden] want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also

This practice isn’t rare in debates, but to admit it so clearly is. I think this was meant to be endearing, to show that she’s not going to play the Washington game. She won’t do what you want, she’s a maverick! Her contempt for all sorts of questions is astounding. Anyone care to guess when the last time a VP candidate never held a press conference during the campaign? Even Dan Quayle had one the day after his nomination. I’m fairly certain that this is unprecedented for quite a while, certainly within my lifetime.

(further tangent)
A little while ago, Campbell Brown on CNN said that the McCain campaign was being sexist by hiding Sarah Palin from the press:

“Stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment”

After thinking about this for a little while, and seeing the interviews with Katie Couric, I’ve come to believe that this isn’t sexism from the McCain campaign at all. This is just smart campaigning. They’re hiding her because she needs to be hidden and protected, not because she’s a woman. A similarly-prepared man would also need to be protected from real questioning (though I’m pretty sure a similarly-prepared man wouldn’t be nominated in this situation anyway).

Anyway….

Palin winked at the camera 4-5 times, which I found really unnerving once I picked up on it:

Do “hardworking small-town Americans” wink at people this much? This isn’t a reason to support or not support Palin, it’s just plain weird. I can’t picture any other major candidate (male or female) winking this much to an audience. Picturing Dick Cheney winking the same way made me laugh, though. “… we’ll be greeted as liberators ”

In the end, this debate didn’t really change anything. Those who believe Palin is an absurd choice still believe so, those who believe she’s the next Ronald Reagan still think that, too.

FactCheck has a roundup of the inaccuracies from the debate on both sides.

I’ll be writing more soon, but I need to get some sleep.