Oh, don’t worry. She’s alive. I just mean she kicked all available butt at the vice presidential debate. I admit I was very nervous leading up to the debate after seeing her interview with Katie Couric, or at least whatever edited portions were made available. But she definitely blew me away with her performance! She knew her stuff, she called Biden out on his and Barack’s statements and records, and just gave very good answers to all the questions.
I’m not the only one who thought so, either! There was a focus group on Fox News last night of people who said they were undecided and were split evenly between Bush and Kerry voters in 2004. At the beginning they were also split evenly on Sarah Palin, but afterwards an overwhelming majority thought she performed better than expected and also that she won the debate. When asked if the debate changed anyone’s minds and swayed them toward a candidate, three of the four people who raised their hands acknowledged that they were swayed toward McCain. Watch it here.
I’d also like to commend Gwen Ifill. I think she did a good job as moderator, despite the concerns that she would favor Biden considering her new book about Obama coming out on inauguration day.
I have to tip my hat to Biden as well. He really said it best when asked about Obama’s experience:
“I think he can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.”
Oh, wait…sorry…that was from August 2007 during the primary campaigns ( Source ). But really…that would have been a valid point to make last night. I do have to respect Biden, though, for performing much more competently and professionally than Obama did last week. I disagreed with mostly everything he said, but that does count for something. And I think we can all say that we learned something valuable from his statements last night: he likes to hang out at Home Depot. Check the debate transcript here. It’s there, I promise.
So congratulations to Sarah Palin for a killer performance last night, and what I perceive as a clear win when we needed it most! She definitely took down her biggest moose yet:
Say it ain’t so, Joe!
The Right Frame of Mind 