Joe Biden on how he’ll debate Sarah Palin (the specific question and his response at approximately the 2 minute mark.
And yet again it is all about perception. As everybody knows Nixon won the debate against Kennedy from only listening to the debates. Televised was a disaster for Nixon.
I’m anxiously awaiting if Palin will pull out the crying card. I seriously doubt it. Biden needs to watch himself though. I’ve been watching him for nearly 25 years now and I still can’t get past his smirk. If I were him I would just debate the issues and hardly acknowledge that Palin was there. If he comes across as condescending at all he will look like an ass, which many people think that he is anyway, including myself.
Even if people don’t watch the VP debate live, I have a feeling it’ll be all over the news and comedy shows for some time afterward.
Yet my cow-orkers are still orgasming over how “hot” Palin is. I have to admit that some men, especially Republicans, only think with their nether heads. 
FTR: Someone dug up the swimsuit competition from the Miss Alaska competition. I stand by my earlier assessment of, “attractive, but Alaska is a small pool of contestants,” and add that Playboy could scare up a better crop of, “The Girls of Alaska.” Okay, she’s cute, as politicians go. Better than Barney Frank. But hot has no importance for a VP candidate.
Pretty much everyone who I’ve met(all guys) who said they liked palin pretty much said they would **** her, and that’s about as far as it went. So it seems more and more obvious that the MILF factor seems to be her biggest selling point among a lot of guys.
Unfortunately, they don’t seem to see the fact that attractiveness doesn’t count towards your qualifications for the vice presidency. Beauty Queen, sure. VP, nope.
I’ve been wondering for a few days just how much this accounts for Palins Popularity among the rightwingers.
Nobody can deny the power of TV. We can all agree that the camera likes her from all angles. So far she is an unknown Governor from Alaska. Never underestimate the power of the male libido.
Pretty insulting to suggest that Palin’s popularity is simply due to men thinking she’s hot. Especially since you have absolutely no evidence that this is the case. If anything, her ‘hotness’ hurts her, because it makes her look more like a lightweight. Successful female politicians at a national level have to look tough, and traditional attractiveness doesn’t help that.
As an example, when she met the president of Pakistan, he told her she was ‘gorgeous’, then made a joke about a handshake turning into a hug. It was sexist and it demeaned her. But people see those kinds of interactions and the first phrase that comes to mind is not, “the leader of the free world”. She does not look Presidential when other leaders are drooling on her rather than listening to her.
Getting back to the debate…
This debate is going to be tremendously important. Palin’s bubble has been burst by a non-stop stream of negative press about her. McCain has lost the five or six points she brought to the ticket among the general electorate. But she’s still inspiring the ‘base’, and that’s very important on election day. But even they are starting to get worried. She’s put in a couple of terrible performances in interviews, looking totally out of her depth. That’s scaring people. The last thing Republicans want is to feed into the stereotype that Republicans are stupid.
In this debate, her task is to come out of it with the stature of Biden. She absolutely has to get across the message that she’s at least his equal - if not in wonkish policy knowledge, than in ability to think on her feet, in having good, sound judgment, and in having enough knowledge to do the job.
She has to do this while not alienating the base, and while reassuring the independent women who have moved towards her that she’s not a bible-thumping social engineer. A fine line to walk.
Frankly, I’m not sure she can do it. She’s competent in a debate - I’ve watched several debates in Alaska, and she did fine. But that’s her home turf, and she knew the issues well. So far, I have not gotten the sense that she really understands the issues a President faces. Economics, foreign policy, military strategy, national issues… Every time she’s been asked about such issues, she’s resorted to weak talking points and uttering banalities and generalizations. She can’t do that in the debate, or Biden will slaughter her.
If she pulls it off, and restores the image she had after the convention, it’s a huge win for McCain. It could win him the election. If she craters, not only will she ruin her own future career, but she’ll tarnish McCain because the Democrats will use her poor performance to call into question McCain’s judgment in choosing her.
This is probably the most important vice-presidential debate I’ve ever seen. And if I were McCain and Palin, I’d be mighty worried.
Palin’s bubble has been burst by her own miserable perfomances in lightweight interviews. The Press isn’t inventing those word-salad answers or her clear lack of knowledge. The Press also has not invented her social extremism, her ethical problems, her compulsive lying or her fringe associations with anti-American separationist groups and lunatic preachers. You can’t just blame her loss of popuarity (especially from independents) on the Press. She’s done everything she can to hurt her own media coverage, and the McCain campaign only fuels the fire by steering her away from uncontrolled access or questions.
Hell, even some conservative columnists are starting to turn on her.
I didn’t say any of that. I simply said she had negative press. I didn’t say it was unearned. Some of it was unfair, especially in the first week. But lately, she’s deserved the bad press she’s been getting, because it’s based on her performances, which have been dismal, and not on dredging up every little detail of her past and blowing it out of proportion.
Even if the press were completely neutral in treating her (and I’m sure you think they are), she’s still screwed up enough to earn the bad press she’s been getting. That’s why the debate has become so important - she’s got a bad image that she now has to erase with a commanding performance. And frankly, I don’t think she’s got it in her.
Do you also have a contingency plan for what Biden should do if the random dance of air molecules happens to leave him surrounded by a bubble of pure nitrogen?
I think not having Paling defending the performance of McCain after the presidential debate may have been a good idea for her handlers, but I think it showed McCain as really blowing it.
It demonstrated that McCain or his handlers did not have confidence on how she could support what McCain said. By contrast Biden was available and doing his part after the debate.
What level of non-Alaskan “wonkish policy knowledge” do you think she had before being selected?
If a lot – say, enough to hold an intelligent and insightful conversation with any random reader of the Economist, where/how did you form that opinion? Do you give credence to her comments regarding proximity to Russia? That is, do you think because she was between two nations, she actually did consider it incumbent on her to keep up to date with foreign relations. Does the same hold true for national domestic issues?
Or very little? If very little, other than suggesting she’s brighter than a lot of people give her credit for, how does the notion that she crammed all of this in three weeks affect your opinion of her? Or do you think in the past three weeks her opinions and statements have been her analysis of what others have told her, not just their scripted opinions? What do you mean by exhibiting “sound judgment”?
Personally, I think she’s got the right right-wing instincts: pro-life, 2nd Amendment, strong religious ties, etc. This suggests that whether or not she could have found Georgia on a map a month ago, her policy and world outlook will generally conform to the Republican base – hence her forethought and time spent considering the issues in the past is moot. I am not saying this is acceptable (I find it rather repugnant and insulting), but that it is the pragmatic reality and why people already in her camp are more likely to give her a pass or not consider certain things failings.
The Dope, despite being left leaning, is heavily fact and information oriented, and her Bush-like (or what I’m assuming is her Bush-like) willful myopia is extraordinarily disturbing. I think it must be hard for her supporters here to parse out the difference between general partisanship and particular revulsion for someone who, frankly, probably wouldn’t measure up to the general (very general) posting standards of GD.
Lastly, I think the debate is going to be very reminiscent of Bush v. Gore. There were such low expectations for Bush, that merely holding his own against Gore came out as a significant victory. This is different from Obama needing to show competence in Debate1 – with Bush, like Sarah, there is palpable expectation of verbal failure. I think that’s what we have here, a failure to communicate… (RIP Paul)
ETA: I just realized that I A) don’t think she actually knew Georgia was a country, let alone was able to find it on the map, and B) have no idea where that opinion came from.
It’s impossible to watch the Couric interview and come to any other conclusion, really.
It’ll be interesting to see if Biden is smart enough to do what he needs to do, which is just hold back and let Palin hang herself. Palin absolutely WILL hang herself, and good, if Biden lets her. But it’s not in his nature, and I wonder if his strategists can convince him to keep his mouth shut, plan a few hard crosses, and let Palin immolate herself.
Palin won’t cry. For one thing, it’s not in her nature. For another, anyone who thinks it’d help their campaign is nuts. It wouldn’t impress anyone who’s not a sexist and will convince anyone who is she’s unsuitable for the job.
Biden said it best in that Tom Brokaw interview: he debates strong women every day in the Senate. He’s run against women to keep his Senate seat. There is nothing earth-shattering about Palin v Biden.
I am truly wondering what Palin will say when she opens her mouth (that accent, my god!). Unless it’s Alaskan in focus, what is she to do? They’re not going to debate Roe v Wade or Creationism or witchcraft. I think Biden should be courteous or at least civil (McCain came off as sullen and recalcitrant, IMO), stick to facts and let his experience and knowledge show. She can’t help but look incompetent next to him or anyone who’s spend anytime in DC. He can’t be seen to be playing with his prey, so to speak, but essentially he is the cat and she is a lame mouse.
I saw the Couric interview on YouTube, and it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. And I hate Palin’s politics. The accent doesn’t bother me, but it might sound really rube to someone who cared about it, the accent is thick. My opinion after a few days of thinking about the interview has diminished somewhat, but I still don’t see terrible.
Seriously? Even rabid Republicans are cringing at it. She sounded like someone reading aloud from a test written by a high school student who hadn’t done the required reading.
I guess we could argue about it one way or another, but there’s the really important fact; most people think it was a disaster, even Republicans. In every case when she has to interact with someone who is not a friendly supporter, people’s impressions of her are extremely negative.
Do the candidates know what questions will be asked in advance? I’m sure they can guess the general topics, but are they provided the actual questions?
I think it’s a pretty good idea to practice Biden against Granholm, just to see if she can throw him off and figure out where his motormouth might lead him.
I find it hilarious that they considered subbing Lieberman (aka Droopy) for Biden. I can’t think of a less appropriate sub.
From here.
Rumor has it (like all rumors, take with salt) that the McCain campaign thinks debate run-throughs with Palin have been “disastrous.” Perhaps one of those leaks designed to make everyone lower their bars or get cocky.
No, thank goodness, they are not given the questions. Lehrer made this clear Friday night.
Palin will win. The viewpoint of the viewer has apparently a lot to do with who you think succeeds in debates. Palin can just say religious responses to all question. She can clearly come out against abortion and big time pro gun. That is the base she is trying to keep and they will be completely satisfied, no matter how little she knows. If she make the evangelicals happy, she has done her job.