Vice-President Picks

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It appears that this debate turned out similarly to the first Presidential debate. Once again, I was not particularly impressed by either candidate, and once again the Democratic candidate came away with a double digit lead in all the polls of who won last night's debate. I also agree with Chandos that this debate (like the Presidential once) was quite dull.

I think that both candidates did what they needed to do. In Biden's case that was to show his knowledge of policy, while not appearing to be a bully to Palin. There's no real need to attack Palin anyway. Aside from the people who will vote for Palin on the exclusive basis that she is a woman, most people don't vote for a president based on who the running mate happens to be.

In Palin's case, she needed to exceed the (exceedingly low) expectations everyone had of her. Which basically meant talking in semi-coherent sentences. She managed to pull it off. That said, while she definitely had the folksy charm working, some of her answers made absolutely no sense. For example, on the current financial crisis, she said that Joe Six Packs and Hockey Moms need to band together and say, "Never again". Um... What? Joe Six Packs and Hockey Moms are going to be responsible for averting a financial crisis? How can they be expected to do that?

Anyway, for the numbers wonks, here's how some people scored the debate:

CNN: Biden won 51-36
CBS: Biden won 46-21 (only 21% - wow!)
NBC: Biden won 49-31

About the only thing Palin won on was on the question "Did the candidate perform better than you expected?" That question was asked in the CNN poll, and Palin won, 84-64.

Here's the most troubling statistic for Palin that came out after the polls on the debate - a lot of people still don't think of her as presidential material. On the question "Can this candidate be an effective president?"

CNN: Biden won 87-42
CBS: Biden won 91-44
NBC: N/A (They didn't ask this question.)

I gotta ask - do you actually spell potato with the "e" on the end, or was the veiled reference to Quayle? (Remember - Quayle is no Jack Kennedy!)

 

Speaking of words, I was more than surprised that the word "nukular" is still used by the American political high-life.

 

Actually Shaman, it's considered the correct pronunciation now in conservative circles for some reason. Bush mispronounced it, no one corrected him (or he felt like saying it correctly afterwards was a tacit admission he'd done something wrong), and henceforth it became canon. "Nukular" has become one of those dog-whistle words that seems to send a message to the kind of people who loved Bush that "I'm one of you." The rest of America still winces whenever it's pronounced that way though, because contrary to popular belief, we don't enjoy being thought of as idiots.

Palin's mispronunciation of the names of Iraq and Iran (she says EYE-rack, EYE-ran) was touted in several conservative editorials and blogs as a big plus and evidence that she's "one of us, she gets it," whatever that means. Part of it seems to me to be an unsubtle dig at Obama, since he pronounces them correctly (ear-AWK, ear-AWN) and evidently that means he's a terrorist sympathizer or something (i.e., "he's not a REAL American, he's one of THEM.").

The whole thing is just stupid and embarrassing. Imagine if another world leader, despite being corrected, insisted on pronouncing our country "The United States of AYE-merra-KAYE." Wouldn't we think that leader was a bumbling idiot, or, at the very least, needlessly disrespectful?

 

DR, if you only consider the wacko-extremist 'concervative circles' who are still stocking their fallout shelters, then that's spot on. In reality, though, about as many conservatives cringed at that as liberals. I know I (and everyone in my extended family, all conservative republicans) did.

As for who won, the gist seems to be that, which ever party you support, that side won. Palin held her own and showed that she's a competitor (and I think got in a few more good digs at Obama than Biden did at McCain, especially using Bidens own words), while Biden showed his experience and didn't make any major flops. Both managed to connect to the audience, though I think Palin definitely did better there, and both issued some less-than-reliable statistics, though I think those that do research into the statistics offered will come off slightly more in McCain's favor than they were before (but only a little).

As for the note cards, the only people that go into a debate without note cards are either those supremely confident that they know the issues (as in, they've been dealing with them for years) and those who are complete idiots. Since Palin hasn't been dealing with these issues for years, avoiding notes would be idiocy, while using them for reference (like she did) was smart.

Those digging at her for using note cards sound to me a lot like the people that dug at her Convention speech for using speech-writers, even though she only used them to polish up her own speech a little.

 

NOG,

I wish I could believe that, but every time I turn on Fox News or listen to talk radio it's "nukular, nukular, nukular," and I know you don't consider Fox News to be wacko-extremist. They're the "closest thing we have to moderate," you once said. But I'm not surprised your family cringed, I'm glad to hear it; you're clearly very intelligent and I've no doubt they are too.

I don't know where you get your information NOG, but that wasn't her speech at all. It was a speech written for Mitt Romney and re-tooled at the last minute to come from a woman's perspective and add in a few nuggets about her personal story. She didn't write zilch. Then she invented a story about the teleprompter going out so she therefore had to "wing it," rather than read it verbatim (also debunked). Her speech may have been impressive, but I have supreme confidence in the abilities of a woman with a degree in Sports Journalism to read from a teleprompter. It tells us nothing whatsoever about who she is and the depth of her actual knowledge.

Everyone has speech writers and few pols write their own stuff (Obama is a notable exception). The issue with Palin regarding her convention speech is that the fiery, confident "pit bull" we saw at the convention was not the confused, bumbling, scantly-informed neophyte we saw in ANY of her subsequent media appearances. The "pit-bill" did indeed resurface at her debate the other night, but given that the format didn't allow for ANY follow-up questioning, how are we to know that she really knows what she's talking about or just regurgitates memorized talking points? Especially when her campaign refuses to let her speak to the press?

I bet I could sound like a medical genius if I memorized a few chapters from the Sabiston Textbook of Surgery and spouted them off. But the point is - if anyone asked me a follow-up question, how I would apply what I just said to an actual surgery or, God forbid, asked me to scrub in, the results would be catastrophic. Without such scrutiny, I'm FAR more dangerous for claiming to know what I'm talking about than if I'd just admitted I was out of my depth in the first place.

Isn't this EXACTLY the point though? She's running for the second most powerful office on earth, for crying out loud. I ONLY want people up there supremely confident in the subject matter. I don't want someone who has to "cram" for days just to appear competent, I want them to know their sh*t blindfolded before they're even considered. Why are my standards for this office so much higher than yours?

 

DR, both the President and the VP get the advantage of advisors. I'd much rather have a VP who's decision-making abilities I trust (as evidenced by previous work) than one who knows the issues but can't make decisions. I'm not saying that Biden is the latter, either, I'm just showing my priorities here.

Also, where are you getting your info on the Palin speech?

 

It was reported in this Washington Post article from a while back that the speech was prepared in advance by McCain's staff, and had to be retooled. It's a long article, so here's the choice bit:

It doesn't say so explicitly in the article, but the "very masculine" part could only refer to two people (since Leiberman could hardly pull that off), Pawlenty and Romney. I'd read somewhere that McCain's people were lobbying hard for it to be Romney, and hence it was written for him, but I can't seem to find that article anymore. As for the teleprompter silliness, it's here. Basically, she said it went out, it was proven otherwise, she continued to claim so on the stump anyway. Similar to her "I said thanks, but no thanks to that Bridge to Nowhere" lie and several others, but admittedly much more trivial.

Since neither was very widely reported, I suppose it was unfair of me to rib anyone for assuming she wrote her own stuff. It's not exactly an earth-shattering revelation anyway, and the fact that McCain's campaign is coddling Palin is matter of public record at this point so, it's not a big surprise either.

As for who "knows the issues but can't make decisions," who are you referring to?

 

I'm sure Putin and Ahmadinejad will go much easier on her than that she-devil, Katie Couric. But then, a pitbull with lipstick should be able to hold her own against a news anchor, eh? Palin is a lady, though, so the evil liberal media should be a bit more gentle with her.

 

DR, there are two reasons I question your article. One, Palin has a degree in journalism, so I would think she's pretty good at writing herself, making a speech writer unnecessary and dangerous, and two, Alaskans who have heard her give speeches before say that about 2 lines of her speech were anything other than vintage Palin. Now, neither of those are 100% proof that the Washington Post was wrong, but it does raise questions.

 

Well NOG, if the fact that McCain's campaign manager admitting in the article that they wrote the speech for her didn't sway you, I'm not sure what will. I assure you NOG, she doesn't write her own material, mainly as a function of the fact that Presidential campaigns RARELY allow their candidates to lead the rhetorical charge, but especially given the fact that the McCain campaign's handling of her makes that all but an impossibility. If they feed her her own talking points, there's simply no way they'd let her near a pen.

You are, of course, welcome to continue giving her far more credit than she deserves. For the rest of the world (and especially among the few intellectually honest conservatives left in existence*) she is an absolute joke of a candidate, and I honestly marvel at the lengths you and others are going to make excuses for her. There's no way on earth you would remain so uncritical in the face of the same level of inadequacy in a Dem candidate. I guess the difference between us is, neither would I.

* I highly recommend the linked pieces, for everyone. But especially those who support Palin. They are a few of many.

 

You are absolutely right, DR. If Palin was a Democrat the right would howling about the cynicism surrounding her and what she stands for. There would be no end to the Republican "outrage...."

NOG, it's common knowledge that politicians have professional speechwriters. Are you familar with George Washington's Farewell Address? Wahington's famous speech should be required reading for all Americans. There are a handful of important documents that go back to the Founding that are of critical importance for anyone who claims to understand (or wishes to understand) the "American Experience." Do you think that Washington wrote his famous speech? Or did he have someone else prepare it for him?

 

Obama doesn't really have that much more experience than Palin. A few years in the Illinois State legislature (which is a part time job) can't do very much to prepare for the office of president either. Most of his tenure as US Senator has been spent campaigning for president.

You mentioned inadequacy -- how is Obama not inadequate by any standard making Palin inadequate? I think there's a double standard being presented here.

 

I think, and I don't mean to speak for DR, is that Obama has been preparing to be president and given a lot of personal thought to how he would govern as president; Palin has not considered it until 5 weeks ago and has no national agenda, except for what she has been handed to her by the RNC and Team Mac. Certainly, neither Obama nor Palin has a lot of experience in that regard. But does experience matter in this election? There seems to be a desire for change, rather than the business as usual routine.

The scary part is that both Obama and Palin are using almost the same talking points as GWB did in 2000. He too was a self-proclaimed "Washington outsider," who was about to bring big changes to how business was done in Washington. GWB was all about "change." That's your "Moment of Zen," as Jon Stewart would say.

 

T2 - You're kidding, right? Let's go to the tale of the tape.

Obama can (and does) answer any question thrown at him with a superior command of the issues. Palin has an obviously weak grasp of just about every issue and struggles to remember talking points, and her campaign refuses to let her attend a single press conference (something never seen before in our nation's history) and cries "gotcha!" when people ask her what newspapers she reads. Advantage: BO

Obama has two honors degrees - one in PoliSci from Columbia and a Harvard Law Degree - from two of the most respected educational institutions in the world, with the aspiration to one day get into Government and help people on a larger scale. Palin took 6 years to bounce around to six different state colleges to achieve an undergrad in Sports Journalism, with the aspiration to one day be a Sportscaster. 6 of our past Presidents have had law degrees. No sportscasters yet. Advantage: BO

Obama was elected President of the highly-respected Harvard Law Review (no easy task). Palin participated in a beauty pageant she didn't even win. I hear she plays a mean flute, though. Advantage: BO

Obama was a constitutional law professor at another highly-respected (and rather conservative-leaning) school, University of Chicago. Palin was a sports anchor for the local news. Advantage: BO

Obama was a state Senator, which you rightly point out is part-time. Palin was mayor of a tiny town in Alaska where she ran up an enormous debt for the town's 5,000 residents. Also a part-time job. Advantage: BO

Obama became a US Senator for one of the country's most populous and economically important states, and 3 years later, a Presidential Candidate. Palin became the Governer of one of the country's least populous and electorially relevant states. In this regard, she does indeed possess a small amount of executive experience that Obama lacks. Advantage: SP

Obama has a long history of engagement in world issues and gained a considerable amount of respect from his conservative coleagues at the University of Chicago for his interest in engaging in debate and discussion on world issues, particularly with people whom he disagreed and went to great lengths to find common ground and mutual respect. Sarah Palin found out about the surge on the news after it had become official policy, and her own son was in Iraq at the time. Advantage: BO

I could go on for an hour. This isn't even like comparing apples and oranges. It's apples and dumptrucks. Aside from personal appeal to low-information "Joe-Sixpack" voters and irrational liberal-phobes or throwing red-meat to the cro-magnon base of the GOP ("Obama palling around with terrorists, doncha know!" ), it's very hard to find areas where she's NOT demonstrably inadequate for the second highest office on earth.

As to the question of "experience," some of us put a higher premium on intellect, character, superior policy ideas, and a generally more thoughtful approach to major policy decisions (i.e., not "blinking" is no substitute for good judgement) than on the amount of chronological time a person has spent in a given office. If time spent in a job lead to superior qualification, everyone would get to be a CEO at some time in their lives.

 

DR, not having read the link, for fear of slow internet and limited time, I hadn't realized the McCain campaign had admitted it. The next question, then, is 'so what?'. As you said, everyone uses speech writers, and the words came out of her mouth very nicely, and sounded very genuine, so they obviously tailored the speech to her rather well.

As to your credentials for Obama, those are very nice, but what has he done with them, aside from move on to higher posts? Has he achieved anything? Have you looked at the impact of his Illinois legislature term? How about his Senate terms? He hasn't championed one bill, he's voted with the democratic, liberal line something like 90% of the time, and the funding procurements he's gotten for Chicago (in either role) have disappeared down holes that are now being investigated for imbezlement. I'm not saying Palin's much better (maybe not at all), but she's not going for the top job (yet at least) while he is.

 

Yes, God bless him. It's about time we had someone who knew how to vote on the issues. Of course, what you consider "liberal" is probably still somewhat conservative to me.

 

The "so what" is only relevant in that it was you NOG who made the claim that she wrote the speech herself, with only a little help from others. If you didn't believe it relevant whether she wrote it or not, since she delivered it so well, I wonder then why you argued for it at all.

As for defending Obama's legislative record (and debunking much of what you just said), that may take a while so I'm going to have to either table that for another day (since I'm on deadline at the moment and have goofed off enough as it is) or ask that either Drew, AMaster, Aldeth or Chandos fill in for me if they have time. While the above post was from memory I'll have to do a little digging for that one and can't ATM. DR buggin' out...

 

Here you go, DR:

First of all, lets talk about Obama's time as a State senator. State legislators deal with the same challenges passing legislation that US legislators deal with, and their job is no less part time than that of a US legislator. If experience as a state senator doesn't count, then experience as a US senator doesn't count, either. Onto his accomplishments:

Probably the most important reform Obama passed was the legislation requiring that all interrogations be videotaped. The reason he pushed for, and ultimately passed, this measure stems from a problem in Illinois in which many confessions were coerced rather than voluntary because officers were beating the living **** out of the accused. Obama rightly concluded that this, first of all, most likely happened during interrogations and that, if interrogations were videotaped, it would happen a lot less -- if it even happened at all. One would think that a bill like this would be a no-brainer that everyone supports, right? Wrong. The bill aroused immediate and vehement opposition and, like most sensible legislation, this opposition stemmed from both sides of the aisle.

Republicans who were automatically tough on crime opposed it, as did Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. In a sick twist, many death penalty abolitionists feared the bill because they felt that preventing the execution of innocents would deprive them of their best argument. The police opposed it, too, arguing that they wouldn't be able to "solve" as many cases. The incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, also announced that he was against it.

The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. They tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but since the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, Obama successfully fought to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping. Obama was ultimately able to allay the officers' fears by showing them that he shared many of their concerns, and even went so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted. The bill ultimately passed with flying colors. Obama was then able to talk Governor Blagojevich into passing the bill despite his initial objections.

Obama also played a major role in passing the state's first earned-income tax credit for the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years --a law that made Illinois one of the best states in the nation on campaign finance disclosure.

Onto the US senate:

Obama was the Senate’s point person on ethics reform, and sponsored or co-sponsored the bills that made up what the Washington Post called “the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet.” This bill has also helped numerous bloggers and journalists, as it created a searchable database of recipients of federal grants and contracts.

Then there's the Lugar-Obama initiative, which strengthened the Nunn-Luger framework for securing loose nukes, and extended it to securing and destroying stockpiles of conventional arms such as shoulder-fired missiles that could be used against passenger airlines, fired at our forces, or used to make any number of ongoing conflicts more deadly.

He played a major role in Various bills concerning the response to Hurricane Katrina, including an amendment putting strict limits on the use of no-bid contracts after disasters, requiring planning for the evacuation of people with special needs and senior citizens, and creating a National Emergency Family Locator System.

There are also a lot of good bills he worked on that did not make it, including the compromise immigration bill and a proposal to create an independent Congressional Ethics Enforcement Commission. There’s a lot more, but now I'm running out of time.

 

DR, I actually like the guy -- I voted for him in the senate race (granted he really did not have an opponent).

He has great credentials -- but where in those credentials does it spell out "this experience is directly pertinent to the office of the President of the United States." One important detail is Obama is running for President, not as a running mate. The issue of experience is far more important for the Oval Office -- and Obama is sorely lacking there.

I've known people with honors degrees, lawyers from top universities, professors, and members of the Illinois legislature -- none of these people stood out in my mind as "presidential material." Your list sounds impressive to most of the masses -- but I've been around people with those type of credentials before. That Palin made to where she is without those credentials is far more impressive to me.

There are other aspects about Obama that I like -- just as there are other aspects of Palin I like. Each has their strengths and weaknesses -- both are inexperienced, which is a weakness for each of them.

Edit: Drew -- now you know why I voted for him for US Senate. I thought he was the best person for the job. I believe McCain is the best person for this job -- but Obama would be acceptable.