The Ashford Zone Blog

You will read or hear that the flash polls conducted by CBS of uncommitted voters showed that Biden "won" the debate:

Forty-six percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed say Democrat Joe Biden won the debate, compared to 21 percent for Republican Sarah Palin. Thirty-three percent said it was a tie.

CNN had similar results:

Fifty-one percent of those polled thought Biden did the best job in Thursday night’s debate, while 36 percent thought Palin did the best job.

This is, of course, great news for Democrats, because these are polls of the ever-crucial uncommitted voters.  You simply cannot win the election without winning them.

It is clear to me, however, that the McCain team strategy with Palin wasn’t to win those votes.  Palin was selected to appease the conservative base, who were always luke warm for McCain anyway.  And Palin’s task in the debate was to stop the bleeding of the previous week – bleeding caused by Palin herself in her Couric interviews, but also some gaffes by McCain.  She did that — the neoconservatives are gushing.

But it should come as no surprise that Biden "won" among uncommiteds.  He was the only one reaching out to them.

By the way, Joe Klein’s wrap-up of the debate is quite good, particularly in his crystallization of exactly what Palin managed to do last night to be judged competent. "She displayed an ability," writes Klein, "for the first time since her convention speech, to repeat with a fair amount of credibility, the formulations that her handlers had given her." That was it.

The winks.

That’s what stayed with me the most thinking about the debate this morning.  Palin’s winking.

It caused me to pose this question: "If Palin were a woman who looked like, oh, Helen Thomas or Margaret Thatcher or Hillary Clinton or even an actual typical soccer/hockey mom from middle America, would she get away with that?"

I don’t think so.  It would be creepy.

Look, I’m a feminist.  And I like it that women are progressing in all areas of society, especially politics.

And I don’t really mind when politicians — men or women — use their intangibles (personalities, looks) to win over voters.

But with Palin, there is (or should be) a serious question as to whether her flirting with America (really, there’s no other word for it) is being used to enhance her substantive political skills, or to mask the fact that she lacks them.

I (as you might expect) lean toward the latter.  And the way you can verify this for yourself is to do this: read the transcript of the debate, and then ask yourself who is better suited to be a heartbeat away from the most important job in the world, and perhaps the most crucial moment in this country’s modern history.

Does Sarah have substance?  Is she politically skilled and knowledgable?  I would say "Yes."  But enough for that position?  No.  She’s well-suited for mayor.  In fact, I’m convinced that she would never have obtained the governorship of Alaska had it not been for her looks and charm (i.e., if she had looked like Margaret Thatcher).  But that’s Alaska’s problem.  Let’s not make it America’s.

I think this assessment said it best:

She looked like she was trying to get people to take her seriously. He looked like he was running for vice president. His answers were more responsive to the questions, far more detailed and less rhetorical.

On at least ten occasions, Palin gave answers that were nonspecific, completely generic, pivoted away from the question at hand, or simply ignored it: on global warming, an Iraq exit strategy, Iran and Pakistan, Iranian diplomacy, Israel-Palestine (and a follow-up), the nuclear trigger, interventionism, Cheney’s vice presidency and her own greatest weakness.

Asked which is a greater threat, a nuclear Pakistan or a nuclear Iran, Palin seemed to be stalling, or writing a term paper, when she said: “An armed, nuclear armed especially Iran is so extremely dangerous to consider.”

Biden was crisper, with a dose of realism: “Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be very, very destabilizing. They are more than — they are not close to getting a nuclear weapon that’s able to be deployed.”

Biden relentlessly and clearly delivered a specific message he had been assigned to hammer home: McCain-Palin would be four more years of Bush-Cheney. Biden mentioned President Bush more than a dozen times.

Fortunately, according to the CNN poll, the debate did nothing to convince uncommitted voters that Palin was fit for office:

Palin qualified to serve as President?

Before debate:
42% yes
54% no

After debate
46% yes
53% no

8:40 pm:  McCain was on Fox News today, saying the bailout bill — which McCain voted for — is a catastrophic bill which will lead the country into financial ruin.  Now, maybe McCain was having a "senior moment" and meant to say that the thing the bill was meant to fix was catastrophic.  But then, McCain said that Bush should veto the bailout bill.  Again, I don’t think McCain was aware of what he was saying, but I think Biden needs to mention it anyway.

9:00 pm:  I’m watching it on CNN.  They’re the "best political team in the history of ever" or some such nonsense.

9:02 pm:  No opening number.

9:03 pm:  "Hey, can I call you Joe?"  She’s polite.  I want to vote for her.

9:06 pm:  She’s doing fine.  Could have done without the soccor Mom thing in her opening statement.

9:07 pm:  He’s not looking at the camera; she is.  I don’t for whom that is better.

9:10 pm:  Her reference to "Joe SixPack" and "hockey moms" didn’t go over well.

9:15 pm:  She said "I may not answer the questions the way you and the moderator want me to".  Honey, you’re not answering the question AT ALL.  That was a bad round for Palin, avoiding the whole McCain-deregulation charge.

9:16 pm: Biden looks at the camera now.  I liked his retort on McCain’s health care plan, but I think it went over most people’s head.

9:26 pm:  Wow, this is dry!  Both of them!  She’s not being the attack dog.  No pitbull.  She is letting too many attacks and accusations go unanswered.  He’s not.

9:29 pm:  Dammit!  She’s going to talk about energy whether we want to hear it or not!

9:31 pm:  She doesn’t want to argue about the causes of climate change, she just wants to solve it?  Honey, bear.  You have to KNOW the causes in order to solve it.

9:32 pm:  And that’s what Joe said said.

9:33 pm:  There it is… the first smarmy attack.  "The phrase is ‘Drill baby drill’".  The women in the audience poll didn’t like it.

9:38 pm:  Oh, she tolerates gays.  Wait, she is talking about gay couples having to write contracts to get the same rights that heterosexuals get as a matter of law?  No, they’re not on the same page.

9:40 pm:  She’s not polling well on the Iraq question.  Man, is she kissing McCain’s ass.  Doesn’t she understand that she is at the top of the ticket?

9:41 pm:  On Iraq, Biden says "Well, I didn’t hear a plan in that answer". And then he gave the points of the Obama plan.  Biden is killing her on the insta-poll.

9:44 pm: Palin just said that the plan that Obama, Maliki, and President Bush currently supports is “a white flag of surrender.”

9:52 pm:  She’s very prepared with her talking points, but it’s sometimes awkward how she tries to wedge those talking point into the question.

9:53 pm:  Biden is really kicking her butt in this whole foreign policy thing.  She’s got platitudes only.

9:55 pm:  "Past is prologue" is a great response, Joe, but 3/4ths of the country won’t know what that means. 

9:56 pm:  "I haven’t heard any plans yet for change" — that’s the great Biden theme.  He needs to keep hitting that.

9:57 pm:  She blows off the question about nuclear bombs.  She obviously wasn’t prepped on that, so she just said that nuclear usage is bad, and McCain will take care of it.  Then she turned to Afghanistan, but only after pronouncing "nuclear" as "nucular".

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that she’s very well-prepared on the things she became well-prepared on in the past few weeks.  Unfortunately, if there’s a question that’s too far off the mark, she talks about whatever is in the book in front of her.

10:00 pm:  Darfur.  I wonder if that’s in her book.

10:04 pm:  Yup, it’s in her book.  Hey!  As governor, she thumbed her nose as the Sudan.  How cute!General McClellan?  In Afghanistan? [UPDATE:  See below]

10:07 pm:  John McCain knows how to win a war?  How?  From his time being a POW in Hanoi?  In a war we lost?

10:09 pm:  A team of mavericks, and then she winks.  Is she winking at me?  I think she is!  I’m gonna vote for HER!  She LIKES me!

10:13 pm:  She turned her book to the "education" page, and she talked about education.

10:16 pm:  No, honey.  The Constitution is not flexible.  THE VP WORKS IN THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH!  She, like Cheney, failed that question.

10:19 pm:  She’s talking to me like it’s Romper Room.

10:21 pm:  Wow, Biden choked up when referring to his son almost dying.  He was waaaay more genuine on the "I’m a regular person" that she was.  That was a pivotal moment.  He took her strength, without even trying.

10:23 pm: Nice attack by Biden on McCain being a "maverick".  I’m so SICK of hearing that from her in this debate.

10:25 pm:  Here’s the job interview question: "What about you was bad that you changed?"  He answers honestly.  She says in effect "nothing".

10:29 pm:  In a question about bringing about bipartisan cooperation, she answers by making a distinction between conservatives and liberals.  Not sure that was the best answer.

Closing statements.  Her instadial poll is up again.  Except when she attacked the "mainstream media". I think she sounds like she’s in a high school election.  Biden was good.  I liked the "Champ, get up".

Final thoughts: Biden won.  I think he will do better with the undecideds.  He simply knew he stuff; it was clear he didn’t just learn it.

Palin did what she needed to do to shore about the cracking conservative base, who would never have voted for Obama anyway.

UPDATE:

General George McClellan, Commander of the Union Army during the Civil War

General David D. McKiernan, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and the top US military commander in Afghanistan

Now, you can say "Oh, she just got the name wrong".  Well, yes, but why?

Answer:  Because she just learned it!

LATE UPDATE:  I’m calling it a night, but I like this Palin performance summary from Publius:

Palin, by contrast, didn’t wear very well. Her schtick got old. Like her candidacy more generally, it was a sugar rush that fades quickly. It wasn’t so much that she had any truly trainwreck responses (though there was plenty of gibberish). It was that her mindless memorized cutesy lines and winks began to look like amateur hour in comparison to Biden’s command of facts and policy.

The GOP saw Michigan as a vulnerable blue state.  McCain and Palin have been there; they were planning to go back (that visit has been cancelled).  Staffers, offices and advertising have all been pulled from the state.

What does that mean?  It means what we’ve known for a few days now: McCain is losing in swing states, and even being seriously challenged in traditional red states.

At this point, the electoral map basically looks like this: Start with the 2004 results. Iowa and New Mexico flip to the Democratic column. Pennsylvania, Colorado, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, and New Hampshire all move into the toss-up column. That puts Obama at a base of 243 electoral votes and McCain at a base of 179. According to Pollster.com, poll averages show Obama ahead in Virginia, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. McCain leads in Indiana and North Carolina. They’re tied in New Hampshire. Plug all that in and you have Obama at 329 electoral votes, and McCain at 205.

So McCain can’t afford to waste resources on Michigan, which is too blue to be anything otherwise.

Perhaps Obama should now cut back on Michigan as well, and focus on Missouri again.

Another screw-up:

In an answer to questions about her foreign policy experience ahead of tonight’s make-or-break vice presidential TV debate, her aides listed numerous contacts with foreign officials – including Britain’s ambassador to Washington, Sir  Nigel Sheinwald.

However the meeting never occurred. Officials at the embassy swiftly contacted the  McCain-Palin campaign to inform them of the discrepancy.

A British Embassy spokesman said the error arose after Sir Nigel’s name was listed among those who had attended a US Governor’s meeting in July.

Mrs Palin was at the meeting in her role as Governor of Alaska. However Sir Nigel pulled out at the last minute, leaving his name on the guest list. 

Okay.  We obviously know what’s going on, right?  Palin’s handlers are trying to bolster her foreign policy bonafides and, lacking anything solid, they’re grasping.  They realized there was a Governor’s meeting reception that Palin had attended, so they scoured the guest list, assuming that Palin had met every foreign dignitary present at that reception.

It’s been bad strategy from day one.  From the date of Palin’s selection as the GOP VP nominee, they should have simply acknowledged her lack of foreign policy experience and argued why it doesn’t matter in the long run.  That’s clearly a tough sell, but it would have been far more successful than for Palin and her handlers to attempt to "create" foreign policy experience out of thin air.

If Palin tries to bolster her qualifieds by making the point that her state (Alaska) is 239 times larger than Delaware (Biden’s state), then — except for the handful of diehard rightwing monkeys who will go "Yeah!  She’s RIGHT!" — it’s over for the McCain campaign.

You know, if this is only half-truths, it is still very devestating and a must-read.

For example, you know the story about McCain refusing an offer by his Hanoi captors to be released, because other servicemen weren’t also being released?  Well…..

What McCain glosses over is that accepting early release would have required him to make disloyal statements that would have violated the military’s Code of Conduct. If he had done so, he could have risked court-martial and an ignominious end to his military career. "Many of us were given this offer," according to Butler, McCain’s classmate who was also taken prisoner. "It meant speaking out against your country and lying about your treatment to the press. You had to ‘admit’ that the U.S. was criminal and that our treatment was ‘lenient and humane.’ So I, like numerous others, refused the offer."

"He makes it sound like it was a great thing to have accomplished," says Dramesi. "A great act of discipline or strength. That simply was not the case."

And man, what a narcissistic womanizing incompetent prick is McCain.  There’s this…

During his 1992 campaign, at the end of a long day, McCain’s wife, Cindy, mussed his receding hair and needled him playfully that he was "getting a little thin up there." McCain reportedly blew his top, cutting his wife down with the kind of language that had gotten him hauled into court as a high schooler: "At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." Even though the incident was witnessed by three reporters, the McCain campaign denies it took place.

***

At least three of McCain’s GOP colleagues have gone on record to say that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief. Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said that McCain’s "temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him." Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he doesn’t "want this guy anywhere near a trigger." And Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi weighed in that "the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded."

Read the whole thing.

Yeah, I might.  Sox aren’t playing tonight, right?

The folks at Vanity Fair have already liveblogged it.

Just in case you’ve been under a rock (or not reading this blog), here’s a nice TPM compilation of most of Sarah’s blunderings in interviews, all in one place. (Does not include her Roe v Wade muff-up)…

Really, don’t: