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When Biden debates, almost any time he opens his mouth, something interesting comes out. Sometimes it's a very well thought out and articulate point. Sometimes it's a real zinger against his opponent. Sometimes it's a completely wacky gaffe ... in fact the term "gaffe" is almost synonymous with the name Joe Biden.
Last night I was impressed with Biden's performance. I thought he did a good job answering the questions Gwen Ifill asked, and he was free of gaffes. I thought his answers were thorough and, for the most part, fairly sincere, including some completely sincere moments. Biden did rely quite a bit on rehearsed party-line campaign speak, though, and I continue to be terribly disappointed with the extreme negativity and divisiveness of the Obama-Biden campaign pitch.
I don't hear enough concrete answers about what Sens. Obama and Biden would do differently in their administration now that they've so successfully criticized the current administration. Biden still failed to outline new strategies last night.
Of course, the Obama-Biden campaign somehow also manage to consistently neglect to point any fingers of blame at our current Democratic Congress, whose approval rating has been in the toilet ever since their 'newness' wore off. After all, our Congress is our legislative branch! Of course, it's best for the Obama-Biden campaign if We The People forget that, so I'm assuming that's why they fail to blame Congress for any of our problems. Again, last night's debate offered more of the same from Biden.
I do have to say that I personally agreed with Sen. Biden 100% about the self-evident Constitutional rights of all Americans to have the freedom to choose their own partner, regardless of gender, without forfeiting the rights our Constitution grants to all of us. It really seems like a no-brainer to me.
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Re: Palin-Biden Debate Restores My Faith In This Election
By SmartCookie, October 9, 2008 at 09:09Hey Melkor,
Am rushing off to an appointment, but thanks so much for the comment here ... yes, bizarre, isn't it! I've been commenting all over the site today ... Bridge the Feminism and Sarah Palin on Foreign Policy, but they keep dropping from the front page intermittently so you may have to look for them if you're interested.
Btw, I also already posted my thoughts about the debate. Interested in your opinions and looking forward to seeing what you have to say when I get back. Oh, please click on the link in my debate article ... my husband also wrote an article about his thoughts, and truthfully I think it's the best thing having to do with this election that I've read in a long time!
Sorry to have to dash off ... have a wonderful day!
Re: Palin-Biden Debate Restores My Faith In This Election
By Melkor, October 3, 2008 at 13:18Hey SC,
I only was able to catch about 15 minutes of the replay on MSNBC, so take this for what it is worth – Biden came across (dare I say this) PRESIDENTIAL (I think it is brilliant for him to refer to McCain as ‘John’ – it tends to add a lot of credibility to his commentary). What I saw was Governor Palin avoiding the questions asked of her to fall back on solid republican territory – low taxes (and to paint the opposition as tax-and-spend-liberals).
However, this woman will be a force in her own right soon enough. She needs to be immersed in this stuff outside of the campaing dynamic – so she can take deep breaths and absorb what is going on – this sort of crash-course-on-the-job-training can’t be easy and I think this showed.
Again, I didn’t see the whole thing. The fact that you think Biden won as well tends to make me think he did actually win. I’ll take the opinion of a cautious conservative to the bank any day.
Re: Palin-Biden Debate Restores My Faith In This Election
By SmartCookie, October 9, 2008 at 05:28Hi Melkor,
I'm sooooooooooo sorry to take so long to reply to your comment! My computer has been in and out of the "horse pistol" (hospital ;-)) lately, so my access has been limited an sometimes non-existent recently. Sorry!
Thank you for the comment!
I agree with you about the difficulty with the crash course Palin has been on lately. I'm personally impressed with her, though. Although her grasp of every detail is still forming, she has no trouble in connecting with my beliefs about how our elected officials should serve while in office. Even though she is a conservative Christian, as Governor in Alaska she stated that she didn't think abortion rights should be decided by the Governor, but by the Alaskan people. I dig that. I agree completely. I wish all our politicians answered questions that way .... more than that, I wish all our politicians governed that way. She has a right to her personal opinion and I don't judge people's personal beliefs. Abortion is legal in Alaska.
So although Palin isn't the type of politician we're used to, she definitely understands the job description. I can quite relate to her on many personal levels and she is such a genuine person, in my view. I have stood before many boards of executives taking tough questions, feeling slightly out of my league much of the time, but understanding that the best I could do was be honest and confident because I really did know what I was talking about - even if I didn't answer each of their questions the way they wanted me to. And yes, I had to say "I'll have to get back to you about that" quite a few times - that's an honest answer!
In each case, I earned the respect and the business of the executives who had low expectations of me when I started ... trust me, a lot of people never expected anything intelligent to come from me because they judged me on my looks and my (bubbly;-)) personality, and a lot of people never expected the truth to come from me because I was a salesperson. People are full of prejudices and misunderstandings. I have a lot of respect for people like Sarah Palin who are genuine to their own inner-self and who respect the value of being honest.
Lol, I have been accused of being "Palin-esque" ... ok, I'm not sure that's true, but I'll take that as a very high compliment!
Nice to see your comment and please accept my apologies for taking so long to get back to you!
Re: Palin-Biden Debate Restores My Faith In This Election
By Melkor, October 9, 2008 at 08:45Hi SC,
Please don’t sweat it – it ain’t nothin but a thing. Life often gets in the way of our best intentions, and we are at the end of the day absolutely dependent on these machines.
I look forward to your thoughts regarding Tuesday night’s debate – I managed to watch this one but to do so had to excuse myself from the normal post-work-ritual (details omitted deliberately) – I think McCain SLAYED Obama but I must have been watching something else – all the spin doctors, partisan hacks and pundits give it the Democrats – even the Fox site concedes defeat (which is probably the biggest indication that the Republicans have thrown in the towel than anything else). I base this on the same reasoning I gave the VP debate (what I saw of it) to Biden. I think McCain won because McCain answered the questions asked of him (more or less), we heard new things out of his mouth (personally I found this the most important thing – the last 30 days or so has changed the political dynamic by a quantum leap, and if the political rhetoric doesn’t change than that person is ill equipped to handle the situation in my opinion). The typical stump diatribe I’ve heard from Obama the past 18 months or so (at this point I’ll be glad once it is over) has not changed one iota (except for the glaring shift on his withdrawal timeline in Iraq).
The best example I can think of was the question of retaliation to Iran if they attacked Israel. McCain was quite hawkish, and Obama (remember, the question came from an undecided American voter) spun it to blame the Bush administration for putting everyone in this position – I really didn’t get that response, considering the region’s opinion of Israel for the past 40 years or so – I don’t know if he blames Bush for making the man ask the question or just the man for asking – bizarre.