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Tuesday October 7, 2008


     

The Palin-Biden Debate and Where Things Stand Now

Commentary by John Jalsevac

October 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The polls and the pundits are agreed that Joe Biden won Thursday's vice-presidential debate.

And yet, a political debate is not to be judged like any other: for in the end the winner is determined, not by a panel of experts who base their judgments on a set of weighted criteria, but by the audience, and well after the fact, at the ballot box. The real question, then, is not whether Palin beat Biden, but whether Palin gave Americans enough of a reason to vote for McCain over Obama.  

Apply conventional debate standards to Thursday's faceoff and Biden takes home the prize. A veteran with over 30 year's in the senate (As Palin quipped shortly before the debate: "I've been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in, like, the second grade!") Biden put his experience to good use. Not only did he soothe Obama supporters by avoiding any major gaffes, but he delivered a strong performance - confident, hard-hitting, knowledgeable and polished. He won.

But nothing is ever so clear as that, especially when it comes to politics.

At times watching Palin was, well, uncomfortable. Her tactic of dodging the questions and redirecting the debate back into safer waters was a transparent tactic to cover up a lack of knowledge on the intricacies of economic issues, political history and foreign policy. And yet, at the same time that many a groan was emitted from the throats of Democrat and Republican alike, not a few viewers, including the pundits, marveled at Palin's calm, cheerful, and unapologetic method of turning the debate to her own purposes. She was a woman supremely in control, if not necessarily on topic.

In the lead-up to the debate many an observer felt that Palin's going head-to-head on national television with one of the country's most experienced senators was something like the nightmare every amateur actor has experienced: the one where you find yourself standing in the middle of an stage before a large audience, only to realize that you're playing a major role in a play, the script of which you have never seen or read, and tonight is opening night. Some wondered if Palin wasn't feeling like that, suddenly thrust onto the world stage to play the role of vice presidential nominee without having reviewed the script.

Apparently not.

Instead of standing paralyzed in a cold sweat under the floodlights (as one inevitably does in such nightmares), Palin smiled, winked, charmed, and talked her way through to curtain call. And the audience is agreed that Palin's interpretation of a political debate, while dangerously avante garde, worked. 

It would be a mistake to downplay this accomplishment.

The fact is, no one ever pretended that Sarah Palin would yet be a match for a senior senator like Joe Biden when it came to a battle of raw experience. In a lot of ways, that's the whole point of Palin, like it or not. She's new on the national stage, and has the expected knowledge gaps of a neophyte.

Palin isn't a Washington veteran and can't be expected to act, or debate, like one. She hasn't voted in the senate 487 times for one thing, and another 285 times for another. She doesn't know how McCain voted the last 857 times, for one simple reason - she wasn't there. She couldn't be there. She was in Alaska, becoming the country's most popular governor, and raising a family. And that's why McCain picked her, and why grassroots Americans are drawn to her.

Last Thursday Palin didn't try to be someone she wasn't, namely a Washington veteran. Instead she unapologetically showed America who she is - a Washington outsider with guts enough to make up for any perceived short-comings and to carry the McCain-Palin ticket through the ballot box.

As she herself observed at one point, "How long have I been at this, like five weeks?" Which was just another way of saying, "Cut me some slack. I've got this whole VP thing covered, but just don't expect me to sound like every other politician out there, delivering an endless inventory of facts and figures."

In his post-debate analysis columnist Mark Steyn drew an interesting distinction between what was said in the debate, and how it was said, paralleling these to the lyrics and the tune of a song, respectively. 

As Steyn quipped, a lot of those who immediately declared Biden the victor, "reviewed the lyrics and missed the music."

"Whereas, I would wager, a big chunk of uncommitted voters out in TV land listened to Gov. Palin, and liked the tune they were hearing. If you're one of those coastal feminists who despise Alaska's sweetheart as a chillbilly breeder whose knowledge of foreign policy is as full of holes as the last moose to make the mistake of strolling past her deck, Thursday night's folksy performance isn't going to change your view. But, if your contempt for her wasn't already chiseled in granite, she came over as genuine, confident … and different."

For a lot of people, especially as the financial crisis looms, and Bush's popularity plummets to unprecedented lows, Palin's difference, and the genuineness of that difference is compelling. She may not be able to offer the comfort of being able to rhyme off the facts and figures that we take to be "knowledge," but she can offer a candor and honesty that is rare for a politician. It might not be your style, but the fact is that Palin is still drawing the crowds, and that's good news for McCain.  

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