Questing for Atlantis

Well, now the VP debate is over. My thoughts:

-Sarah Palin was the clear winner. She came in with extremely low expectations and went far beyond them. She was calm, collected, and intelligent – not a sign of the Sarah Palin that was interviewed by Katie Couric. On top of that she remained fixedly on message, with only a few deviations from a strong conservative stance (but in line with the McCain platform). And my gut instinct is that she won in the area that really mattered for her – making herself someone voters can relate to. On that count she’s worlds above everyone else in the field.

-No one messed up. That was the real surprise of the night. I came in expecting nothing much in the way of real debate but plenty in entertainment as Biden gaffed himself all the time and Palin stumbled through her lack of knowledge. Instead both were clear and cogent without any notable slip-ups.

-Sarah Palin is a far better communicator than Joe Biden. Her sports broadcasting experience at work perhaps? Whatever it was, she was warm and easy to relate to. On the other hand Biden was the usual Biden (when he isn’t making dumb, inane comments), namely dry, stuffy, and plain old vanilla politician. And in that much up, relatable always comes out on top.

-Moments of high comedy were to be found. My favorite. Biden’s claim that Cheney has been our nation’s most dangerous VP. Total lie – Aaron Burr killed a guy. Cheney jsut peppered a dude with shotgun pellets.
A close second: Biden says we should be building schools in Pakistan to counter Madrassa’s. Funny on two levels. First of all – is Biden promoting school choice market mechanics outside of America. Second – America can barely manage its own schools, why should we punish the Pakistanis by building ours over there?

-Twitter is getting better. Updates came through much better than they did in the first debate. A much appreciated improvement.

-Gwen Ifill. I apologize for my early skepticism. She was fair and balanced, and in fact sent a few zingers at both candidates. She did a far better job than Lehrer, that’s for sure.

Agree? Disgaree? Let me know.

Like the last debate, I’ll be live tweeting this debate and follow up with post after the debate. If you want to follow me on Twitter and aren’t already for some reason, here’s the link.

As for the debate, I have a hard time predicting what to expect. I fully anticipate that in some ways it’s going to be a contest between whether Palin or Biden can out-idiotic-statement the other.

On the other hand, I’m still holding out hope that Palin is going to pull something out of nowhere or that her previous bumbles have been the result of her not being herself and she’ll be the real Sarah Palin tonight with good results.

And then there’s the whole issue of the moderator, Gwenn Ifill, and her new book about “the age of Obama.” It should be interesting to see if that plays out as the potential problem it’s being proposed as being.