Too much Palinage. I pit Joe Biden!

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Argent_Towers

This campaign is all about marketing, and image.

If you want to see how drastically marketing has changed over the decades, becoming less about substance and more about image - flashy, slick, x-treme image - compare these two ads from Honda, from 1978 and from 2008.

1978 Accord

2008 Scion

The first one is a small, modest picture of the car, and then a very long and detailed explanation of its various features. It’s informative, helpful, and convincing - but it’s not XTREME.

You know what would be really extreme? Sorry… XTREME? If Honda started producing advertising for Toyotas.

Anyway, this goes back to way before 1978.

FDR went to ridiculous lengths to hide his infirmity.

Kennedy “beat” Nixon in the televised debates because Kennedy was young, fresh and appealing, while Nixon was old, crotchety and ugly.

[bdgr]

@mlees

However, I think Biden needs to be on his best game, to make sure he is not seen as a bully, but still make her appear (as a result and goal of the debates) to be unqualified for the role of VP.

Does Biden have the ability to pull that off?

I think he needs to be brutal. If he can make her lose her cool she’ll be seen as not tough enough for the job.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@bdgr

I think he needs to be brutal. If he can make her lose her cool she’ll be seen as not tough enough for the job.

What part of the job requires toughness?

The Vice President’s job is to be from somewhere the President isn’t, then mix him (or her)self a stiff drink and wait for the President to die.

Al Gore voted in the Senate four times. Dick Cheney somehow found time to vote eight times. They must have been remodelling the secure location or something.

[BrainGlutton]

@marshmallow

Biden is a smiling reptilian monster.

Aren’t they all?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@BrainGlutton

Aren’t they all?

I don’t think he’s done Obama’s genealogy yet. Still, my money’s on lizard.

[bdgr]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

What part of the job requires toughness?

The Vice President’s job is to be from somewhere the President isn’t, then mix him (or her)self a stiff drink and wait for the President to die.

Al Gore voted in the Senate four times. Dick Cheney somehow found time to vote eight times. They must have been remodelling the secure location or something.

well…if the president lives out the term, not much. If he doesn’t, then she has to be the one to blow up all the brown people.

[waterj2]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Whoops. I’m not implying that Kinnock was stupid because he was Welsh. I’m merely pointing out that there were hardly any universities in Wales when Kinnock was a collegian, and even fewer before that. (12 today, but just 6 until 1949).

Wasn’t the whole point of the speech to point out the lack of opportunities faced by people like his family?

Anyway, it made no sense for Biden to appropriate that line, because Delaware is as well- or better-educated than nearly all the other states.

Biden is originally from Scranton. While I don’t have any figures on hand, I’ve never heard anything about Scranton being known for its institutes of higher education.

[BrainGlutton]

Fear No Man!

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@waterj2

While I don’t have any figures on hand, I’ve never heard anything about Scranton being known for its institutes of higher education.

Me either, but I think they’re doing okay:

[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
With regards to colleges and universities, Lackawanna College, Marywood University, the University of Scranton and Johnson College all make the city their home. Penn State operates a satellite campus in the suburb of Dunmore.
[/QUOTE]

Wasn’t the whole point of the speech to point out the lack of opportunities faced by people like his family?

Yes, and it made perfect sense for Kinnock to point that out, but not necessarily Biden.

[TVeblen]

@FriarTed

I like Biden. He’s not boring. He can be pugnacious, and the challenge will be to keep that in balance with Palin so he doesn’t appear to be “beating up on the girl”.

Which is very weird, considering the shit Hillary took forever. I am not and never was a Hillary fan but fair’s fair: the woman was slammed by conservative talking heads that she wouldn’t be tough enough to play with the big boys. McSame and Creationist Barbie are playing the gender card shamelessly. If ‘barracuda’ can’t stand up to a tough debate she sure as hell isn’t qualified for Veep, much less to take over the country when McSame kicks it.

[waterj2]

@TVeblen

Which is very weird, considering the shit Hillary took forever. I am not and never was a Hillary fan but fair’s fair: the woman was slammed by conservative talking heads that she wouldn’t be tough enough to play with the big boys.

For example, Peggy Noonan on Hillary Clinton:

It is sissy. It is blame-gaming, whining, a way of not taking responsibility, of not seeing your flaws and addressing them. You want to say “Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other’s bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it’s like that for the boys and for the girls.”

Peggy Noonan on Sarah Palin:

Cable news shows that had people insinuating Palin, whom America had not yet even met, was a bad mother, and that used her daughter’s circumstances to examine Republican views on abstinence education? That was ugly.

[Hamadryad]

Biden has his faults, but he’s not an Evil Fuck,* so I’m all right with him as VP.

• Cheney is an Evil Fuck. Bush the Younger is an Evil Fuck. Republicans are not Evil Fucks.