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VPOTUS Debate

By Michelle | October 2, 2008

Perhaps against my better judgment I put my life on hold for one evening (no studying, no gym, barely any email) and watched the vice presidential candidates’ debate. By way of disclaimer, I’m not a swing voter, and if you handed me a ballot today I’d mark my choice without a moment’s hesitation. But anyhow.

An hour after the fact, mass media is all over the spectrum — let me point out first that I think it’s rather absurd say one or the other candidate “won” the debate. After all, it’s not a first-past-the-post kind of thing. The goal is to garner support for one’s ticket, and we won’t know who did the best at that until November. Overall, I think Biden walked out looking more intelligent, while Palin was the most animated and “normal.” Of course, that depends on how you define “normal.”

I could go on about foreign policy (which means a lot more to me than special education or even domestic drilling), but this commentary on Fox News’s online forum really resonates with me:

Gov. Palin was clearly prepared by sticking to her script and not answering direct questions. It will make her and Senator McCain’s base happy but I think that it will not move the middle. Most Americans are wise to avoiding answers. Senator Biden was smart, cool, very human and direct. Call me an elitist but her use of folksy English drove me crazy. I think a potential Vice President should be a model with their speech.

I’m not sure I’d agree with the commentator’s description of Biden as “very human,” but I do think that Palin’s “down-home” way of speaking would really start to get to me after awhile. On the other hand, when was the last time I heard Cheney speak to the media?

Oh, and NPR said they didn’t get the Obama lama song (their website links to the first one below). I guess their writers aren’t familiar with random YouTube culture. So if anyone from NPR stumbles across this, here’s a crash course in the lama song:

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