The Inevitable VP Debate Post

"This was supposed to be a no rough stuff type deal!"

I don't know about the rest of you, but after last night I've got a hankerin' for some Fargo.

But putting that aside for a moment, we have the debate. The best that can be said for Sarah Palin is that she didn't turn into a Tina Fey caricature live on stage. She also didn't really answer any of the questions, at all, and at a few points took wildly disconnected tangents. I appreciate her thoughts on education, for instance, but did she even remember that the question was on how she differed from McCain? Granted, it was 3 or 4 responses in, but Biden simply included the word "education" in a laundry list of important topics, and Palin took it and ran.

She clearly can't think of true, coherent answers on the spot. She has canned responses and when somebody triggers the right word ("education") her internal sensors switch on and she tosses out a heap a' folksiness!

So she managed to string some coherent responses together. She didn't actually answer the questions, but at least her answers weren't gibberish. Biden, on the other hand, has a clear command of the issues, and managed to keep from making any significant mistakes or gaffes.

I think this will result in a slight bump for Obama/Biden, but not much for McCain because all it has done is reinforce the Palin fans' opinions. Independents probably won't consider this a terribly successful debate on her part. She's just not a gibbering idiot, and let me just say I'm glad that's where McCain has set the bar for VP candidates.