That vice-presidential debate in brief
OK, so I’ve just watched it in full, and I think my ears are bleeding.
The headlines as far as I’m concerned - and I’m going into issues of delivery, style and manner here rather than content (mainly because you can take it as read that I don’t agree with anything Sarah Palin and John McCain say, and do agree with just about everything Joe Biden and Barack Obama say):
- Sarah Palin seemed totally and utterly coached. Honestly, you or I could have done just as well as her if we’d dabbled in a bit of local politics and then been trained on the issues by leading politicians and campaign advisors for the past five weeks. There was nothing behind her eyes. It was slick - and god knows, she barely stopped for breath - but there was no substance behind her style. She wasn’t a total trainwreck as she has been in her TV interviews so far - and there weren’t any ‘gotcha’ moments - but then she wasn’t anyone to be scared of, either. Joe Biden won the debate; there was no contest.
- Biden was completely calm, reasonable and gentlemanly, and even flashed his killer smile at her several times. He could have so easily attacked her viciously - especially when she was talking such swooning, utter crap about John McCain - but he didn’t. He did attack McCain, often, and forcefully - but he never laid into Palin herself once.
- And talking of smiling: Palin had a slight smile even when she talked about the war in Iraq. And after Biden had just choked up talking about his two sons, and the death of his wife and daughter, the baton was handed over to Palin… who didn’t acknowledge what had just happened at all, and instead smilingly talked about how John McCain was “the consummate maaaverick”. No empathy. No acknowledgment. For truly, she is hard-hearted Hannah, the vamp of Savannah Alaska.
- Just 10 minutes into the debate, Palin used her ‘get out of jail free’ card, which had clearly been prepared for whenever she found herself in a slightly sticky situation. Promptly turning the subject of deregulation around to energy taxes, she told Biden: “I may not answer the questions the way that either you or the moderator may want to hear…” . And sure enough, she didn’t. She quite merrily changed the subject and avoided the questions as it suited her. And then she’d yabber on and on that you’d forget what the original question was anyway.
- Palin was all generalisations and platitudes; Biden was about specifics. He backed up many of his answers with figures. Palin’s inability or unwillingness to do so served only to enhance my first point: that she seemed like an empty vessel, coached in what to say but not having the knowledge, experience or even passionate opinion to back it up.
- Her language was, as people have said, folksy. All that droppin’ of the g’s. Lots of “betchas” and talk of “Joe Six Pack” and telling us that diplomacy is about “having your friends and allies ready to back yer up thur”. For someone who has a journalism degree and who professes to care about language, she mangles it to death, speaking in unfeasibly long sentences and seeming to think that saying “also” and “so chose to” as much as possible makes her sound like some sort of heavyweight.
- Biden was just as I’ve seen him before - although apparently people are saying this was possibly his best debate performance ever. He clearly is a heavyweight - but at no point did he come across as too dull, or wonky, or aloof. He absolutely came across as a man of the people; not just a Washington drone.
- Palin’s inexperience was palpable. Next to Biden, she seemed like such a small fish. He would talk about his role in Bosnia, his trip to Chad to examine the Dafur crisis… while she talked about all the things she did as governor of Alaska. I swear that in her closing remarks - when she thanked the debate commission and said “This is such an honour for me” - she completely came across as a schoolkid who’d won a local newspaper competition.
- If I hear the word “maverick” one more time - especially when said with a slight smile and a wink in one’s eye - I swear I will hit someone.
Tags: debate, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, vice presidential debate
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:12 pm
the VP debate was stunning. Palin did a decent job faking about 20% of the questions and didn’t even bother answering the other 80%. she might as well have been singing the ABC’s whenever it was her turn to respond … did anyone else notice this?
October 4th, 2008 at 1:02 am
absolutely. I would just switch off. I had to concentrate really hard sometimes to follow her answers. partly because they bored me - they were clearly just random buzz words connected together somehow, with no proper thought or substance behind them -and partly because she just speaks in such long, mangled sentences. she blinds you with… well, whatever the opposite of ’science’ is. truthiness, perhaps?