The VP debate

Since I talked last week about the first Presidential debate, I figured that I should say a little something about last night's Vice-Presidential debate, even though my take on the debate is like a lot of the ones I've read today: objectively Joe Biden was the winner, but Sarah Palin did well enough, and exceeded expectations to such a degree that it also has to be considered a win for her as well.

Palin last night was the Sarah Palin that we first met at the Republican convention, self-confident and folksy, a package aimed at appealing to that mythic place "Middle America", not the deer-in-the-headlights version from the Katie Couric interview. Her performance alone can't save McCain's floundering campaign, but she may have thrown him a lifeline to stay afloat a little while longer, at least until his head-to-head match up with Barack Obama next week.

As for Biden he did the best thing anyone can do in these debates - he seemed presidential. Watching the debate I couldn't help but think it was too bad that we didn't get to see him give a performance like that when he was still in the running for the nomination. Biden was only in for the early debates, the ones with seven, eight, or nine candidates. Let's be real, a debate with nine people isn't a debate, it's some kind of weird group press conference, no one has a chance to stand out. And that's too bad for Biden, if he'd had the chance early on, and if he'd turned in a performance like he did last night, maybe the election might look a little different now.