If I could paraphrase the Governor’s talking points from today’s debate
“Maverick, reformer, God Bless ‘em, Energy Independence, get Government out of our way, too much pointing backwards, massive government oversight needed, Washington outsider, partisanship, reaching out also, lots of straight talk needed, Heartland of America, change also, folks, Dog gone it, ordinary people, kitchen table, soccer also.
And in summation, I’d just like to say “Up there in Alaska, team of mavericks, peace out y’all.”
Although her abysmal performance in recent one-on-one interviews has lowered expectations dramatically (and in the debate she blamed the mainstream media for filtering her – presumably they had a few hours of blank stares and rambling nonsense from her that was spliced into the interview to sex it up) she performed pretty well today, if the standard for debate was merely show.
The debate format allowed for talking point, counter talking point and soundbytes and grabs much better than an interview. The time limit also meant that several topics had to be squeezed in, and without the luxury of poking past the facade, none of the terrifying glimpses into what lurked beneath were really in evidence. There was no time to push for a proper answer when the issue had been skipped, although the moderator did note when that had happened.
Palin was trained (at a slew of 5 different colleges for a threfour year degree) in media, so it wasn’t surprising that her performance was pretty slick. She made up for McCain’s noticeable lack of eye contact with his opponent by addressing Biden square on. And when Biden was talking, the Governor had a variety of smirks prepared to let the audience know he was being ridiculous.
Her recent trip to the UN provided a lot of anecdotes to call on in the debate to fill out her foreign policy experience beyond her cross-border voyeurism of being able to see Russia from (parts of) her home state.
But in the end she still talked rubbish – not the alarming word salad of her interview with Katie Couric, but polished nuggets of sound and fury. The supposed political outsider still cited her executive knowledge and partisan experience in politics as qualifying experience; flaunted her knowledge of energy policy which seems to stem from being governor of a state what makes energy; used a handful of synonyms for maverick enough times to stun a moose and blatantly cherrypicked John McCain’s record to paint a picture startlingly at odds with the truth.
McCain’s maverick history includes:
- lobbying for campaign reform. After being caught up in the Keating Five scandal in the 80s but before running for President, at which time he ditched those efforts because he needed money. And lobbyists. And industry support
- opposing offshore drilling. Until running for President when he needed to beef up his energy policy.
- speaking out against divisive ultra-rightwing Christians who preach hate. Until running for President when he needed to beef up his support among the evangelicals
The most egregious lie being about a team of mavericks, and John McCain’s record being that of an inveterate outsider. Although as Biden pointed out, not on the most important items of the day – the war and the economy.
Being a maverick between crises is like being a vegetarian between meals.
It was only in the closing minutes that I realised where I’d first seen Joe Biden – which was a Senate hearing into the use of torture where he was saying the reason the US didn’t do use it was because then US soldiers, like his son, would face it in return. I thought Biden did well, despite being saddled with gratuitous advice from all sides about not being mean to Palin, and lowered expectations.
Although at one point, he did talk about “Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs” – and I’m pretty sure the latter were a nigh-omnipotent race of energy beings from Star Trek.
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