Seriously. What the hell are these people waiting for? We've had months and months of campaigning and two debates with all four candidates. Is there some issue that hasn't been covered three hundred times already in four or five different ways?

into the voting booths, but until after they've LEFT the voting booths, gone home, made dinner, watched the election results, went to bed, gotten up the next day, gone to work... :)

I'd be curious to hear what reservations are that they still have.  Maybe some are holding out for the first candidate who makes the gold standard a central part of his or her platform?

Few other things, too.

Governor Palin had no gaffes, expressed herself well, and stuck to her talking points.  Wow!  I guess that serves well if she went to a debate camp for 12 years olds!  This is the VP debate for the United States.  Just the fact that she didn't make a gaffe won't change the tenor of the campaign.  Biden's performance was especially strong.  Palin didn't nearly match it.  I think the surprise of this debate was the growing strength and fight that Biden exercised as the debate went on.  He was impressive.  I think that overshadowed the fact that Palin didn't make any gaffes.  Obama is still surging in the polls, and Palin "surviving" will not change that.  I think this shows that Biden was a good choice.  Biden showed his emotion and was down to earth.  He talked about his wife's death and his friends and family.  I think he really connected with people.  Once again, that overshadowed Palin.  Good for him!

They are already voting in Ohio and elsewhere, and McCain is pulling out of Michigan.  The clock is ticking for McCain to close the gap.  

Biden's comments about worrying about whether his kids would pull through definitely got to me. Palin doesn't even react. Just dives right back into her talking points. Was she not paying attention, or did she not care? Hopefully someone can ask her that at her next press conference. Oh, wait ...

In response to the global warming question, after Palin said yes, there was a problem, but she wouldn't get into an argument over the cause, Biden gave a great response that really applies to, well, everything:  if we don't understand the cause of the problem we will never find the solution.  

Expected Palin to be the "rapid fire" populist and Mac's cheerleader. Her incessant proclamation or"declarative" speaking style is supposed to suggest authority, but sounded at times like an infomercial. She stared into the camera and spewed her stuff while smiling majority of the time. She also refused to answer some questions. So all this means was she was prepped well and performed well. She was given a handful of phrases to repeat like a broken advertisement (wish I had the bingo card).

She didn't dig herself deeper into the  hole so guess there was a sigh of relief from her handlers.

She's completely incoherent and just bizarre.  What the hell?

And you know... this all seems very familiar.

Tonight, as I watched the debate, I was truly horrified by what I saw from Sarah Palin.  Forgot my partisanship.  As a free-thinking person, I heard a heavily rehearsed bunch of cliched talking points.  You know, I don't really think Sarah Palin thinks deeply about the world she lives in.  Life in black and white, good and evil, right and wrong.  

For those of us who are free thinking, we accept that the world is complex.  We worry about the world, and about issues that affect people thousands of miles away.  Sarah Palin does not.  She was like a Republican Robot.

This is endemic in the Republican Party.  Too many authoritarians who do what they are told, and say whatever they think will make people vote for them.  Not enough critical thinking, or bringing up issues they care about, even if they aren't being discussed in the media.  For example, Joe Biden talked about Darfur tonight and demanded we do something to stop the genocide.  The genocide in Darfur has been ignored by the media in the last few months.  Joe Biden felt like it was essential to discuss.  Why?  Because Joe Biden is a free thinking individual with values and issues that concern him every day.  

Sarah Palin IS George W. Bush in high heels.

It's like Obermann said about her "you are talking about the past" talking point.  We have 4 more months of bush, we are NOT in the past yet.  Then Fred Thompson uses that talking point.  Doesn't she realize her blabbering about Alaska is talking in the past.  What does she plan to do in the future as VP besides take over the Senate.

So asking them to distinguish themselves from bush is talking in the past.  Another cop out.  We must ignore that and ask specific questions.  What do they plan to do.....

It seemed to me that Gwen Ifill was intimidated, probably by the McCain campaign.  She didn't push for answers from Gov. Palin.  I gave Ifill a pass after the 2000 election.  Tonight, I officially lost respect for her.

but I thought the same thing in 2004. It seems like her moderating strategy is just to ask the questions and then step back and not challenge the candidates when they don't answer the questions. If all they need is someone to read cue cards, then I could be the moderator.

Now I know what Andrew Halcro meant when he said "glittering generalities". Talking point, change subject, talking point, filibuster, attack, filibuster, attack, talking point, stammer, filibuster, change subject talking point, for 90 minutes.

Just follow the flow chart.  Ha.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blo...

Sarah Palin got a tough rap this week for flubbing questions in media interviews. Her solution tonight: not answering them at all.

Gwen Ifill nobly tried to keep both candidates on task. But Palin demonstrated a knack for answering the question she wanted to answer-not the one that was asked. At one point, Ifill asked Palin to respond to a comment by Sen. Biden on health care. "I would like to respond about the tax increases," Palin pivoted and proceeded to accuse Obama of raising taxes 94 times. A minute later, Ifill prompted Palin to respond about McCain's record of deregulation. Again, Palin resisted: "I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again." Biden looked exasperated, prompting Palin to say, "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also." In other words, screw your questions, I've memorized a message and gosh darn it, I'm going to get it across.

He may not have had a knock-out blow against Palin--he let the McClellan thing slide twice (that was the nineteenth century, Sarah, this is the 21st Century now...) but when he stepped up at the end and challenged the "maverick" thing, I thought that was great.

Which was great, I thought.  Biden didn't try to attack or embarass Palin--he took the fight to McCain.  Not only was the Maverick challenge strong, I loved the healthcare challenge, especially now that Obama's cycling those three new healthcare ads in battleground states (like this one).

I know the debate coaches may not have covered it, but shouldn't it be common sense that when someone asks you "Do you agree with Dick Cheney?" the answer to the question is supposed to be "no?"

Do you agree with Dick Cheney's interpretation of the office... hell, if Dick Cheney said the sky was blue, I'd say it's more of an indigo....

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com...

The McCain campaign did not opt, in the end, for Sarah Barracuda. They wanted Palin scripted, and in some cases she seemed to have her lines literally memorized. This was the more risk-averse choice, but provided for few genuine moments of spontaneity.

It also allowed Joe Biden to get a lot of free shots in at John McCain, several of which were quite effective. Perhaps, in the end, this wasn't as difficult a debate for Biden to prepare for as it had been made out to be. Hammer McCain, knowing that Palin would have to go off-script to defend him. It also allowed Biden to be the more emotive candidate.

Palin was unable to defend McCain in this context, because she couldn't go off script. It's beyond her ability.  Most of the piledrivers from Biden were dropped cold, while Palin tried to round-robin the discussion back to some talking point she had written down.

My first impression as I watched last night was that she didn't drool on herself. As I go back and watch the debate in new light, it's obvious she did everything except drool.

Sean will talk more about this, but I suspect that the Sarah Palin chapter of the campaign is largely over. She may draw large crowds in her next couple of public appearances; it's also not out of the question that the media will sour on her performance in the forthcoming days, once it's been removed somewhat from her safety net of low expectations.

I expect that souring to be complete by this afternoon.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs...

For accuracy's sake, we should probably consider referring to tonight's "Showdown in St. Louis" as the "Showdowns in St. Louis." Call it the Tale of Two Debates. In one ring we watched Sarah Palin battling Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin. In the other we saw Joe Biden battling John McCain. They both delivered somewhat uneven performances--but both "won" their individual bouts. The question is which one moved his or her boss closer to victory on Nov. 4.

Palin delivered an appealing performance. But I suspect that undecideds will see Biden as more vice-presidential. So far, the surveys seem to support my hunch. CNN's instapoll gave the debate to the Delaware senator, 51 percent to 36 percent, and 46 percent of undecided voters surveyed by CBS News agreed (21 percent thought Palin won). Are these stats the final say? Hardly. Fifty-five percent of CBS respondents also said their opinion of Palin changed for the better. But even if the voters ultimately decide that the Showdown in St. Louis was a draw, there's no chance that it'll prove impactful enough to alter the basic contours of the race. Right now, Obama leads by an average of six points and has broken 50 percent in several polls--with only 33 days to go. For McCain, a tie won't do the trick.

In other words, survival is all well and good. But it's not the same thing as winning.