The Verdict is in: Biden Won the VP Debate

Not only did Biden win the debate, according to some polls… it wasn’t even close. Sarah Palin did exceed expectations, but when you set them really low to begin with that isn’t a very hard task to accomplish. But when you’re debating the issues, regurgitating memorized talking points and not answering the moderator’s questions isn’t how you win a debate. That’s especially true when your opponent goes out of his way to answer them all. If you count the score based on questions answered, Biden won by a large margin, but the early polls also declare him the winner as well:

The numbers don’t lie, the people thought Joe came across as more for the people than Sarah did with her scripted answers. And look at the picture of Biden before the debate… his idea of last minute prep is watching the baseball playoffs on television. He wasn’t cramming at the last minute and was cool as ice walking out to the stage and it showed during the debate.

As for the debate itself, I thought Palin came across as ignorant and pompus. Tina Fey is going to have no problems mocking her again as she made more than enough gafes for Saturday Night Live to work with. The more slang she used during the debate (saying ya instead of yes for example) the more unprepared and unqualified for the job she looked. And what did everyone think about that “shout out” she gave? During difficult times of war and economic crisis when people are looking for their canidates to take matters of this urgency seriously, watching Palin winked and treat the debate like a high school pep rally was a real turn off. SNL is going to have a lot of fun with that one.

Then there are the actual comments she made. Check out this one:

Palin: There’s a toxic mess on Main Street and it’s affecting Wall Street.

So according to the Governor, Main Street is to blame for the economic crisis. Way to turn on the people there, Sarah. She also kept spreading that outrageous lie about McCain suspending his campaign, which didn’t happen. I really wish Biden called out Palin on that for the bullshit it really was. The campaign was never suspended, offices were still open, ads were still on the air and McCain’s reps were still on major networks ripping Obama. So that’s not suspending your campaign, making it an outright lie.

There was another moment during the debate when Palin meant to say that people wanted John McCain to ‘lead’ during this time of crisis but she accidently said something completely different accidently:

Palin: “… all of us who come from such a diverse background of — of policy and of partisanship, all coming together at this time, recognizing he (McCain) is the man that we need to leave — lead in these …”

Huge gafe right there in my books. Everyone wants McCain to leave? I’m surprised not many people focused on that slip very much in the post debate talk. Maybe they’ll catch it more today when talking about it more in detail.

What I liked a lot about this debate was how Biden focused his attack on the Bush administration and John McCain. Instead of attacking Palin’s record (which she likely had a pre-written answer for on her cue cards) he instead attacked the top or her ticket and hit time after time that a McCain administration would be just another four more years of George W. Bush. Check it out:

‘Past is Prologue’ was a fantastic comeback to all that don’t look over your shoulder crap Palin was trying to shovel. Of course she doesn’t want to look back, she represents the party that is the incumbent. And it appears that Palin didn’t have an answer memorized to respond to that cause she didn’t defend McCain at all when he was compared to Bush, and chose to instead change the subject to something she could talk about instead. She did that often, even avoiding questions asked by Biden and the moderator. Biden was even quick to point that out early in the debate that she’s not answering the question… and then Palin arrogantly responded, I don’t have to answer the questions. That’s when the moderator should have stepped in and said, “Yes, you do.”

The most sincere moment of the debate also came from Biden as well, when he amost teared up when talking about the car accident that killed his first wife and daughter and seriously hurt his two sons. If you watched the meters on CNN when he was talking about how he understands what it’s like to be a single parent, his rating shot to the maximum it could reach. Check it out:

As you can see by the meter at the bottm, people were really connecting with Senator Biden. Just a mere moment later, Gov. Palin didn’t even acknowledge or show an ounce of empathy for Biden’s personal tragedy. She chose to instead respond by firing off another stump speech… and that came off as the rudest moments in the debate and her rating during that response and the ‘white flag’ comment were the lowest of the debate, meaning the people didn’t like her much if at all during those moments.

So while people are going to try to say that Palin is a winner just because she managed to exceed her exceptionally very, very low standards… it was no where near enough to meet the high standard that was set by Joe Biden. He was on his game last night and was untouchable. I even think he did better last night than Obama did during his first debate… and his attacks of McCain and Bush were more direct and hit harder as well. I think Obama and his campaign should be very, very happy with this debate and how well Joe performed. He was a clear victor, it wasn’t even close.

Peter