I stand corrected! I don't think that any reasonable interpretation of the debate last night could come to the conclusion that Sarah Palin won.
The short version is this: yes she was better than expected but, unfortunately for her, so was Biden, which means that on balance Obama wins, because it wasn't a game-changer, so Grampy continues his slide without anything intervening to prevent it.
The longer version is that Biden masterfully threaded the needle. As I last posted, Biden needed to follow Andrew Halcro's advice and respectfully ignore her. He played it exactly right and made his performance all about attacking McCain. She clearly didn't answer the majority of the questions -and even said outright that she wouldn't! In a debate!
Her performance consisted solely of giving speeches parroting talking points and peppered with attacks on Biden and Obama too obviously fashioned by her handlers. This meant that she (unsurprisingly) was unable to answer not only the questions put to her, but the major implied question of the night (and indeed the whole race for her): could she be president? Even the most positive reviews have to answer no to that question, and her performance did nothing to convince anyone otherwise.
Therefore, since Biden had a clear and facile command of the facts and was to all perceptions speaking from his OWN mind, the victory goes to Obama. Last night had to be a game-changer for McCain and it wasn't.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
WHY SARAH PALIN WILL "WIN" THE DEBATE
Jed Lewison of the Jed Report and the Huffington Post has a nice compilation of past debate moments from Sarah Palin that should send a chill down the spine of any Democrats feeling that Biden will "wipe the floor" with her:
In the accompanying article he quotes Andrew Halcro, an Alaska legislator who has debated Palin a few dozen times, saying that Palin is the master of the non-answer. I.e. when she's asked a question, she generally answers the question by saying how important the issue is and giving examples of why it's important but not anything about where she stands on the issue. If you think back, that's what she's done with every interview so far. The problem has been that, in a one-on-one interview, it doesn't generally fly -interviewers bristle when they ask a question that they've worked hard to prepare and the interviewee sluffs it off and talks about something irrelevant.
A debate structure is different however, because the moderator is less likely to call her on it (and in fact the campaign has been laying the groundwork for that all month, with their whining about "gotcha" questions and the like) and the time constraints structure the responses more so that she'll be able to use her response time to great scattershot effect by lobbing major attacks and filling up the rest of the time with folksy non-answers and soundbytes, forcing Biden to use more of his response time to answer her attacks and less time to answer the questions himself. In the end if she merely doesn't completely expolde, she wins because the expectations game has lowered the bar to such an extent that she only needs to be perceived as having the ability to complete a sentence, and regardless the opinion you have of her you have to admit -particularly with the evidence above- that she can at least do that.
So that leaves Biden with an unexpectedly narrow path to victory. The only way to defeat her in this scenario is, as Katie Couric revealed, to make her answer the question -or somehow point out that she's not. This is difficult because saying it outright will ensure he's labeled as a bully.
I agree with Halcro that Biden needs to "ignore Palin in a respectful manner on the stage and answer the questions as though he were alone" but my take is that he needs not only to give thorough succinct answers but purposely go overtime. When he's inevitably wrangled by the moderator he should say something like - "well you've asked a complicated question and I want to make sure I give a thorough answer" or "do I have time? -I want to make sure I answer your question". Moreover he should point out as much as possible that he's in fact answering the question e.g. "the answer to your question is...", "good question I'd like to answer it by...", and "does that answer your question?" etc. This will contrast that she's not answering the questions and reveal her weaknesses.
Don't think for a second that the image that has come out of her as a bumbler in the last month is accidental -this is exactly the same tactic they used in 2004 when Kerry was expected to destroy Bush in the debates. They down played Bush and propped up Kerry so much that all Bush had to do was not completely blow it to be declared the winner. It's classic rope-a-dope.
Finally -Biden has the ability to turn on the charm a himself and can level quite a backhanded compliment when he wants to. Let's hope he times it right and gets the quote of the night.
In the accompanying article he quotes Andrew Halcro, an Alaska legislator who has debated Palin a few dozen times, saying that Palin is the master of the non-answer. I.e. when she's asked a question, she generally answers the question by saying how important the issue is and giving examples of why it's important but not anything about where she stands on the issue. If you think back, that's what she's done with every interview so far. The problem has been that, in a one-on-one interview, it doesn't generally fly -interviewers bristle when they ask a question that they've worked hard to prepare and the interviewee sluffs it off and talks about something irrelevant.
A debate structure is different however, because the moderator is less likely to call her on it (and in fact the campaign has been laying the groundwork for that all month, with their whining about "gotcha" questions and the like) and the time constraints structure the responses more so that she'll be able to use her response time to great scattershot effect by lobbing major attacks and filling up the rest of the time with folksy non-answers and soundbytes, forcing Biden to use more of his response time to answer her attacks and less time to answer the questions himself. In the end if she merely doesn't completely expolde, she wins because the expectations game has lowered the bar to such an extent that she only needs to be perceived as having the ability to complete a sentence, and regardless the opinion you have of her you have to admit -particularly with the evidence above- that she can at least do that.
So that leaves Biden with an unexpectedly narrow path to victory. The only way to defeat her in this scenario is, as Katie Couric revealed, to make her answer the question -or somehow point out that she's not. This is difficult because saying it outright will ensure he's labeled as a bully.
I agree with Halcro that Biden needs to "ignore Palin in a respectful manner on the stage and answer the questions as though he were alone" but my take is that he needs not only to give thorough succinct answers but purposely go overtime. When he's inevitably wrangled by the moderator he should say something like - "well you've asked a complicated question and I want to make sure I give a thorough answer" or "do I have time? -I want to make sure I answer your question". Moreover he should point out as much as possible that he's in fact answering the question e.g. "the answer to your question is...", "good question I'd like to answer it by...", and "does that answer your question?" etc. This will contrast that she's not answering the questions and reveal her weaknesses.
Don't think for a second that the image that has come out of her as a bumbler in the last month is accidental -this is exactly the same tactic they used in 2004 when Kerry was expected to destroy Bush in the debates. They down played Bush and propped up Kerry so much that all Bush had to do was not completely blow it to be declared the winner. It's classic rope-a-dope.
Finally -Biden has the ability to turn on the charm a himself and can level quite a backhanded compliment when he wants to. Let's hope he times it right and gets the quote of the night.
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