The official Biden/Palin debate thread

[YellowLinesandArmadillos]

So admittedly, I fell asleep watching a high school football game in ESPN, Dematha against Good Council. I get it that Palin didn't sound quite so bad. Morning Joe had Pat Buchanan saying he is love again, whatever, and that Biden didn't screw up, won on substance and didn't talk down to her, but appeared at times he was walking on egg shells and she won on personality. How is that for a run on sentence....

 

Yet in reading the posts here, you get the idea that Biden was inept and Palin was a deer in headlights that didn't know anything about Constitutional power or wanted more formal power for the vp... scary enough in itself.

 

Hmmm. My Conclusion: So the debate really didn't mean much on this board.

[pBills]

So admittedly, I fell asleep watching a high school football game in ESPN, Dematha against Good Council. I get it the Palin didn't sound quite so bad. Morning Joe had Pat Buchanan saying she did great, whatever and that Biden didn't screw up, won on substance and didn't talk down to her, but appeared at times walking on egg shells and she won on personality.

 

Yet in reading the posts here you get that Biden was inept and Palin was a deer in headlights that didn't know anything about Constitutional power.

 

 

 

I think Biden was overly nice.

[Johnny Coli]

My wife and I used the DVR alot since we had to rewind to catch the question again since the answer sometimes didnt match.

My wife and I watched it on MSNBC. After a few minutes in when they realized Palin wasn't going to answer any of the questions, they started putting the question up on the bottom of the screen. Pretty hilarious. The bankruptcy question was a riot. If you didn't have the question plastered on the bottom of the TV screen you'd have thought she was answering an energy question.

 

My entirely biased take, she connected with the same people she has been connecting to but didn't do anything to sway undecideds or make any independents comfortable voting for McCain. She had a list of topics and canned zingers that she was told to use no matter what the question asked was. So, for the "looking comfortable" grade she get's a B+ (are smirks and winks on some GOP debate style list?), and for "answering the debate question," which is what makes a debate different than a campaign rally, she gets an F. The "VP should have expanded powers" answer was scary.

 

Biden, gets an A for not being baited and showing incredible restraint. Thought he did a good job correcting some outright lies that Steve Schmidt Palin toosed out. Also thought he did a good job of linking McCain to Bush. He gets a C+ for not looking into the camera for the first half hour, but after that he had it on cruise control and connected with the audience about as much as you'd expect. My wife thought he should have called Palin out for ignoring the questions, but personally I'm glad he didn't. Obama's ahead in the polls, so really all Biden needed to do was attack McCain and avoid Palin.

 

Coming away from it, it was more about her resuscitating her image and less about her saving the McCain campaign. She didn't look like a total moron, but she didn't look like she was doing anything more than reciting talking points. So, she can at least cram for an exam. I don't think that's going to sway undecideds, though.

[drnykterstein]

I fail to see how he got his ass kicked, unless of course they were running to be governor of Alaska. Which of course, I think was intending to do. Palin did well. She avoided giving an answer with really any direct substance. Everything was canned from the campaign talking points. It's sad that people are so excited that she exceeded really low expectations.

 

FYI, The Senator was not saying that Biden did get his ass kicked, he's saying Biden could (or would?) get his ass kicked if Palin was a bit more experienced.

 

Which to me is still silly, but a different scenario altogether that what you are thinking.

[pBills]

FYI, The Senator was not saying that Biden did get his ass kicked, he's saying Biden could (or would?) get his ass kicked if Palin was a bit more experienced.

 

Which to me is still silly, but a different scenario altogether that what you are thinking.

 

 

 

My bad.

[/dev/null]

My daughter hosted a debate-watching party in her dorm.

 

Not a lot to do on that campus?

 

There wasn't a lot to do on my college campus either, it was stuck in the middle of Pennsyltucky Amish country (we could hear the clip-clop-clip-clop of the horses as they rode by ). But at least we had alcohol and condoms

[erynthered]

Biden, gets an A for for being the best bullshiiter of the night. Palin made some shiit up too, but Biden is King bullshiiter of the night.

 

 

 

BIDEN: Complained about "economic policies of the last eight years" that led to "excessive deregulation."

 

THE FACTS: Biden voted for 1999 deregulation that liberal groups are blaming for part of the financial crisis today. The law allowed Wall Street investment banks to create the kind of mortgage-related securities at the core of the problem now. The law was widely backed by Republicans as well as by Democratic President Clinton, who argues it has stopped the crisis today from being worse.

 

 

 

BIDEN: Warned that Republican presidential candidate John McCain's $5,000 tax credit to help families buy health coverage "will go straight to the insurance company."

 

THE FACTS: That's not surprising — the money is meant to pay for health insurance. The Obama campaign tried to capitalize on the candidates' health care exchange by issuing an ad Friday contending that the Republicans can't explain "the McCain health tax."

 

 

 

BIDEN: Said McCain supports tax breaks for oil companies, and "wants to give them another $4 billion tax cut."

 

THE FACTS: Biden is repeating a favorite saw of the Obama campaign, and it's misleading. McCain supports a cut in income taxes for all corporations, and doesn't single out any one industry for that benefit.

 

 

 

BIDEN: "As a matter of fact, John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health care industry — deregulate it and let the free market move — like he did for the banking industry."

 

THE FACTS: Biden and Obama have been perpetuating this distortion of what McCain wrote in an article for the American Academy of Actuaries. McCain, laying out his health plan, only referred to deregulation when saying people should be allowed to buy health insurance across state lines. In that context, he wrote: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

[drnykterstein]

Oh and does she support gay rights now? The evangelicals must love her today!!!

 

BIDEN: Absolutely. Do I support granting same-sex benefits? Absolutely positively. Look, in an Obama-Biden administration, there will be absolutely no distinction from a constitutional standpoint or a legal standpoint between a same-sex and a heterosexual couple.

 

The fact of the matter is that under the Constitution we should be granted -- same-sex couples should be able to have visitation rights in the hospitals, joint ownership of property, life insurance policies, et cetera. That's only fair.

 

It's what the Constitution calls for. And so we do support it. We do support making sure that committed couples in a same-sex marriage are guaranteed the same constitutional benefits as it relates to their property rights, their rights of visitation, their rights to insurance, their rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.

 

IFILL: Governor, would you support expanding that beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation?

 

PALIN: Well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman. And unfortunately that's sometimes where those steps lead.

 

But I also want to clarify, if there's any kind of suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves, you know, I am tolerant and I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don't agree with me on this issue.

 

But in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.

 

But I will tell Americans straight up that I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman, and I think through nuances we can go round and round about what that actually means.

 

But I'm being as straight up with Americans as I can in my non- support for anything but a traditional definition of marriage.

 

IFILL: Let's try to avoid nuance, Senator. Do you support gay marriage?

 

BIDEN: No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. We do not support that. That is basically the decision to be able to be able to be left to faiths and people who practice their faiths the determination what you call it.

 

The bottom line though is, and I'm glad to hear the governor, I take her at her word, obviously, that she think there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that's the case, we really don't have a difference.

 

IFILL: Is that what your said?

 

PALIN: Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not.

 

IFILL: Wonderful. You agree. On that note, let's move to foreign policy.

[pBills]

Biden, gets an A for for being the best bullshiiter of the night. Palin made some shiit up too, but Biden is King bullshiiter of the night.

 

 

 

BIDEN: Complained about "economic policies of the last eight years" that led to "excessive deregulation."

 

THE FACTS: Biden voted for 1999 deregulation that liberal groups are blaming for part of the financial crisis today. The law allowed Wall Street investment banks to create the kind of mortgage-related securities at the core of the problem now. The law was widely backed by Republicans as well as by Democratic President Clinton, who argues it has stopped the crisis today from being worse.

 

Fact is the McCain has always pushed for deregulation. ALWAYS. Now all of a sudden he wants it to save his butt.

 

 

BIDEN: Warned that Republican presidential candidate John McCain's $5,000 tax credit to help families buy health coverage "will go straight to the insurance company."

 

THE FACTS: That's not surprising — the money is meant to pay for health insurance. The Obama campaign tried to capitalize on the candidates' health care exchange by issuing an ad Friday contending that the Republicans can't explain "the McCain health tax."

 

Fact is that McCain does want to tax companies health care plans. That $5,000 will mean nothing when a family has to go out into a very expensive market and buy insurance on their own. That $5,000 will not cover it.

 

BIDEN: Said McCain supports tax breaks for oil companies, and "wants to give them another $4 billion tax cut."

 

THE FACTS: Biden is repeating a favorite saw of the Obama campaign, and it's misleading. McCain supports a cut in income taxes for all corporations, and doesn't single out any one industry for that benefit.

 

"The centerpiece of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) tax plan is two huge tax cuts for American corporations. As president, McCain would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent and allow corporations to deduct immediately all of their investments in equipment and technology. Reducing the corporate tax rate alone would deliver a $3.8 billion tax cut to the five largest American oil companies, according to a Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis of those companies’ financial statements."

 

 

BIDEN: "As a matter of fact, John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health care industry — deregulate it and let the free market move — like he did for the banking industry."

 

THE FACTS: Biden and Obama have been perpetuating this distortion of what McCain wrote in an article for the American Academy of Actuaries. McCain, laying out his health plan, only referred to deregulation when saying people should be allowed to buy health insurance across state lines. In that context, he wrote: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

 

Watch out for the term he used "willing provider" and really is running the health care system like Wall Street a good thing right now?

[KD in CA]

I was just going through the debate again and Sarahs major gaffe may have been " The toxic problem on MAIN street is now moving to Wall Street" Sounds like she got the sound bite canned response wrong.

 

And Biden once said 'Obama' when he meant 'McCain' as he attacked a certain policy. I'd hardly call an inadvertent switching of words to be a major gaffe. It is a very common occurrence in public speaking.

 

Let's not reach too far in our excitement to over-analyze every word.

[pBills]

True. Because then we could go into who Palin was debating. Was it O'Biden or Bob Biden? :-)

[slothrop]

I just don't think "oh golly gee wiz" is a great foreign or domestic policy.

[pBills]

Darn tootin'

[John Adams]

Not a lot to do on that campus?

 

There wasn't a lot to do on my college campus either, it was stuck in the middle of Pennsyltucky Amish country (we could hear the clip-clop-clip-clop of the horses as they rode by ). But at least we had alcohol and condoms

 

Bucknell here once upon a time. Not a whole lot going on in Lewisberg PA.

[John Adams]

My wife and I watched it on MSNBC. After a few minutes in when they realized Palin wasn't going to answer any of the questions, they started putting the question up on the bottom of the screen. Pretty hilarious. The bankruptcy question was a riot. If you didn't have the question plastered on the bottom of the TV screen you'd have thought she was answering an energy question.

 

I think they did that after the first pres. debate when Obama kept talking about the programs he wants to expand in answer to Lehrer's thrice-asked question: "What programs would you cut?"

[Ramius]

this Presidential election is like sitting around the bar at 350AM and having to choose between the fat girl with the belly shirt and sweaty forehead or the skinny girl with the lazy eye and cigarette breath....

 

Remember: you can drink her pretty, but you can't drink her skinny.

[IDBillzFan]

I just don't think "oh golly gee wiz" is a great foreign or domestic policy.

As opposed to the "let's sit down with no preconditions" plan of Obama and Mr. Joe "What do you mean we only have enough botox for one eye?" Biden.

[elegantelliotoffen]

Biden, gets an A for for being the best bullshiiter of the night. Palin made some shiit up too, but Biden is King bullshiiter of the night.

 

 

 

BIDEN: Complained about "economic policies of the last eight years" that led to "excessive deregulation."

 

THE FACTS: Biden voted for 1999 deregulation that liberal groups are blaming for part of the financial crisis today. The law allowed Wall Street investment banks to create the kind of mortgage-related securities at the core of the problem now. The law was widely backed by Republicans as well as by Democratic President Clinton, who argues it has stopped the crisis today from being worse.

 

 

 

BIDEN: Warned that Republican presidential candidate John McCain's $5,000 tax credit to help families buy health coverage "will go straight to the insurance company."

 

THE FACTS: That's not surprising — the money is meant to pay for health insurance. The Obama campaign tried to capitalize on the candidates' health care exchange by issuing an ad Friday contending that the Republicans can't explain "the McCain health tax."

 

 

 

BIDEN: Said McCain supports tax breaks for oil companies, and "wants to give them another $4 billion tax cut."

 

THE FACTS: Biden is repeating a favorite saw of the Obama campaign, and it's misleading. McCain supports a cut in income taxes for all corporations, and doesn't single out any one industry for that benefit.

 

 

 

BIDEN: "As a matter of fact, John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health care industry — deregulate it and let the free market move — like he did for the banking industry."

 

THE FACTS: Biden and Obama have been perpetuating this distortion of what McCain wrote in an article for the American Academy of Actuaries. McCain, laying out his health plan, only referred to deregulation when saying people should be allowed to buy health insurance across state lines. In that context, he wrote: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

 

plagiarist

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DEB...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

[DC Tom]

Darn tootin'

 

You betcha!

[MattyT]

If I was Biden I would have asked Gwen if he really needed to talk about his own Achilles Heel since Palin chose to completely dodge it.

 

IFILL: Let's talk conventional wisdom for a moment. The conventional wisdom, Gov. Palin with you, is that your Achilles heel is that you lack experience. Your conventional wisdom against you is that your Achilles heel is that you lack discipline, Sen. Biden. What id it really for you, Gov. Palin? What is it really for you, Sen. Biden? Start with you, governor.

 

PALIN: My experience as an executive will be put to good use as a mayor and business owner and oil and gas regulator and then as governor of a huge state, a huge energy producing state that is accounting for much progress towards getting our nation energy independence and that's extremely important.

 

But it wasn't just that experience tapped into, it was my connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills? About times and Todd and our marriage in our past where we didn't have health insurance and we know what other Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care? We've been there also so that connection was important.

 

But even more important is that world view that I share with John McCain. That world view that says that America is a nation of exceptionalism. And we are to be that shining city on a hill, as President Reagan so beautifully said, that we are a beacon of hope and that we are unapologetic here. We are not perfect as a nation. But together, we represent a perfect ideal. And that is democracy and tolerance and freedom and equal rights. Those things that we stand for that can be put to good use as a force for good in this world.

 

John McCain and I share that. You combine all that with being a team with the only track record of making a really, a difference in where we've been and reforming, that's a good team, it's a good ticket.

 

I was surprised he actually answered it.