Gov. Sarah Palin made it through the vice-presidential debate on Thursday without doing any obvious damage to the Republican presidential ticket. By surviving her encounter with Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. and quelling some of the talk about her basic qualifications for high office, she may even have done Senator John McCain a bit of good, freeing him to focus on the other troubles shadowing his campaign.
It was not a tipping point for the embattled Republican presidential ticket, the bad night that many Republicans had feared. But neither did it constitute the turning point the McCain campaign was looking for after a stretch of several weeks in which Senator Barack Obama seemed to be gaining the upper hand in the race. Even if he no longer has to be on the defensive about Ms. Palin, Mr. McCain still faces a tough environment with barely a month until the election, as he acknowledged hours before the debate by effectively pulling his campaign out of Michigan, a Democratic state where Mr. McCain’s advisers had once been optimistic of victory.
“This is going to help stop the bleeding,” said Todd Harris, a Republican consultant who worked for Mr. McCain in his first presidential campaign. “But this alone won’t change the trend line, particularly in some of the battleground states.”
[blockquote]“But this alone won’t change the trend line, particularly in some of the battleground states.â€[/blockquote]
It’s the economy, stupid. The credit market collapse couldn’t have happened at a worse time for the McCain campaign. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, period, because of the House election. Representatives are going out of their minds trying to keep their seats.
A review of “Fact Checks” reveals that both candidates play pretty lose with the facts. While the “true believers” on either side sat around spinning the the American public was left to choose between two tickets which are unable to tell the truth. They avoid direct answers. They make fictitious claims…. I wish that candidates would lay out for us who they are, what they believe and what they plan to do. Then let the people choose. Instead, it is all about getting elected through manipulation and marketing. It is sad and frustrating. It is also a contributing factor in why so few people vote.
Some have suggested that the presidential debate format contributes to this problem. It might be better to have each candidate face audience questions on his own and enjoy a chance “to set out his stall.” It might not end negative jibes against the opposition, but it might reduce the impulse to score points for their own sake.
At this time, I an am not planning on voting for the office of president this year, due to significant moral differences I have with both major party candidates, and no clear choice in a third party.
With all due respect neither Mr. McCain nor Mr. Obama embody the concepts of “love thy enemy” nor “love thy neighbor”.
Kyrie Eleison
I have an idea that many people regard boom times as normal, and when we have just ordinary times, they are discouraged – and when there is a recession, they are despondent. Economics is complex, and a sizable portion of economics is psychology, not hard facts. Few people are willing to look hard at all the complex factors that led to a downturn; they simply blame the party who holds the White House. Our current crisis has its roots in laws and regulations going back several decades – most of them well-intentioned. The Law of Unintended Consequences is still valid, however, and what we see today is that Law in overdrive.
This is damning with faint praise.
I was not all that impressed with either candidate. At least they were largely civil, which is an improvement however small. Both were spouting the party line sound bytes that we’ve heard before a hundred times. Nothing new was said.
I’ve had enough of “folksy, I’m just like you” underachievers in the White House. Give me someone brilliant, anyone…I don’t care which party.
Mike L – you are exactly right. I’m tired of the Republicans trying to make being intelligent a bad thing. The campaign and pundits are using words like “professorial” to indicate a bad trait in someone. Why is being smart considered detrimental? Why are we trying to make being intelligent and well educated a dividing wedge? Smart does not necessarily equal liberal! The current president has degrees from Harvard and Yale. Bush senior was a Yale grad. The Republican party is not shy of members who have attended Ivy League schools or who have advanced degrees. While being able to relate to people is certainly a necessary trait to have as a politician, I really want to have someone in the White House that is intelligent, inquiring, well-educated and thoughtful. It seems to me that the tops of both tickets have these traits. This educated = “too big for your britches” mentality may in some places be effective, but I just don’t see how it is overall good for our country. Given the complexity of our times, we desperately need smart people in positions of authority.
Gretta – IMO it’s not only the intelligence that matters, but what a person does with that intellect (call it wisdom, common sense, character, or whatever.) Case in point, Bill Clinton was very intelligent. I would say that he contributed a lot toward making people look for more than just intelligence in choosing a president. The elitist idealogue academics have also done their fair share to make people think “professorial” is a bad word, so I think there is a lot of blame to go around. Arrogance is never appealing and usually causes a backlash, no matter how smart the person may be.
Sarah Palin mopped the floor with Joe Biden!
Cathy-Lou, you are absolutely right that it matters what someone does with their intellect. But, I think it is important that whoever we elect has the intellect to begin with (and I reiterate that I think the tops of both tickets are very bright men). There are some political/governmental positions where having someone who is fundamentally smart is not just good but is critical, because they need to be able to understand and make critical decisions about a wide variety of issues from economics, to international politics, to complex moral issues. At the very least, I think it is best for the country that we have someone in office who can not only get a grasp of these issues, but who is willing to put equally intelligent people in charge of dealing with them. And I think that it is shameful that a party would resort to using “too smart” as a pejorative in a national election.
In your post, academics are equated to “elitist idealogues” as if the two necessarily go hand in hand. Who are those people you are referring to? You can be an academic and even proffer a political opinion without having the pejoratives attached. Do you consider all academics elitist? There are conservative think tanks, conservative academics as well as moderate and liberal ones. But using one brush to paint all academics as idealogues seems to me to do a disservice to both academia as well as academics themselves. We want people to study and go to college. We benefit as a society from having a well-educated populace. We should be celebrating how smart and educated our politicians are, not going after them because they come across as too smart.
You also can be intelligent, thoughtful and articulate without being arrogant. But somehow naturally equating smart with arrogant, i.e., “too big for your britches”, or academic with ideologue seems to me to send a message that we as a society do not value the benefits that education gives us. We should value smart people and their contribution to society and government. Denigrating a person on the basis of their intelligence and education again seems fundamentally bad for society in general. And if adults are doing this in regards to a national election, it makes it more understandable why smart kids in disadvantaged communities often do not live up to their potential because they are afraid of coming across as “too smart” in school. If we make fun of being smart in a national election, what kind of message does this send to our kids?
Where have the intelligent people been? They can’t be in Washington. Or maybe they are, and this is what happens when you put “intelligent” people in charge. Give me your average doofus with enough common sense to know his limitations the over educated idiots who think they can control the economy.
Regardless of how you feel about the debate Sarah Palin managed to do very well despite great pressure. Hemmingway defined courage as grace under pressure. I think that Palin demonstrated that grace. Despite the stakes she was challenging, serous and at times playful. Senator Biden spoke with “gravitasâ€. I haven’t seen much of the fact that he misstated what is in article one of the constitution, got Lebanon and Hamas wrong, miss quoted John McCain, (to name just a few blunders). The restaurant he talked about being in has been closed for some time according to reports I have read. Biden gave a horrible performance.
Library Jim:
That’s not the debate I saw. I was hoping for just what you described and failed to see it. She was Miss Congeniality by and large. I didn’t see any mopping up in any direction.
Let’s be honest. Palin looked like she barely survived the thing emotionally and intellectually. The VP isn’t a test you can cram for and bluff out for an hour exam. I really don’t think she has the stamina or ability to pull off what she did last night day after day. She is wonderful in so many ways, but no VP.
I guess if you make up what you want and act serious about it you are presidential?
“Tonight, Sarah Palin drove another stake in the heart of those fuddy-duddy reactionaries that constitute our mainstream media. Going toe-to-toe with a senator with decades of experience, she more than held her own, giving lie to the media constructed narrative that she was an inexperienced hick from nowheresville Alaska. It demonstrates once again why the media is held in such contempt. For economic and ego reasons, they consider themselves to be our gatekeepers, but frankly they are not that smart. They are not rocket scientists – figuratively or literally. They are certainly no smarter than Sarah Palin. I would be willing to bet that in a free debate with Katie Couric, Palin would come out the victor. (Frank Luntz’s focus group saw her winning literally by acclamation over Biden.)”
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2008/10/02/4247/